


Stone

by TheWonko



Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Altpower Taylor, Gen, Worm crossover, i apologise for nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 00:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 52,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14437305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWonko/pseuds/TheWonko
Summary: During a moment of crisis, Taylor Hebert, destined saviour of dozens of worlds, is approached by an unusual creature, with an even more unusual offer.





	1. Companion of Power, Mother of Success

The ceiling was wrong. That was the first thing I noticed when I woke up. My room didn’t look anything like this. Turning my head produced a view of an unfamiliar wall and a small groan, loud in the otherwise-silent room. 

  
“Oh good, you're up. Glad that worked.”  
  
I turned my head away from the wall, groaning again, and saw a girl with short red hair sitting next to my bed. She pulled her hand back from mine fast enough that it caught the tube running from the back of my hand and almost pulled it out. Why was there a tube in the back of my hand? I followed the tube from my hand to the bag hanging from a stand next to the bed.  
  
Okay, that answered one question; the tube was an IV. Why did I have an IV?  
  
Maybe the girl could help. She was half standing from a chair with a cat clinging to her lap and, frankly, looked a bit surprised.  
  
“Who are you?” I asked, my dry throat making the words come out cracked.  
  
“Oh, right, uh, I’m Amanda,” said the girl as she pulled the cat off of her and placed it on the ground, “Amanda O'Neill. I’m here to make sure you wake up and give you the basic intro.” She reached behind her and pulled a curtain around the bed closed.  
  
**_[Intro to what?]_ ** I only thought it to myself, but the girl responded anyway.  
  
“Good. You’ve figured out the telepathy. That makes what I’m about to say more believable.”  
  
**_[Telepathy?]_ **  
  
_[Of course! As a magical girl, you have the ability to naturally contact other magical beings via telepathy.]_ A new voice in my head. This one sounded familiar though, I just couldn’t place it. The cat hopped onto the bed, and I saw that it wasn’t really a cat at all. Kind of like a cat, but with too-long ears coming out of more normal ears. Sort of a weird cross between a rabbit and a cat.  
  
“Okay, T,” the girl spoke up, “Short version because your dad is coming back and it’ll be a lot easier for everyone involved if I’m not here when that happens. You were stuck in a locker filled with, we’ll be polite and call it ‘shit’. You were about to trigger, not really a good thing, just so you know, but then Cubes here offered you a contract, which you took and became a magical girl. You got out of the locker, fainted, and are now in the hospital. You’ll probably be out by tomorrow, but your brain is gonna need some time to figure out that your body is as healthy as it is, so we’ll continue this once you’re out.” She stood up and handed me a scrap of paper. “Here’s my number in case something weird happens.”  
  
As she said this last part, there was a flash of yellow light. When my eyes cleared, the girl’s clothes had been replaced by a black robe, albeit a short one, and pointed hat, like a classic Halloween witch, even with a broom to complete the look. She opened the window, jumped on her broom and looked back at me.  
  
**_[See you later,]_ ** her voice sounded inside my head as she flew away, **_[Good luck.]_ **  
  
_[I shall also take my leave here, Ms. Hebert.]_ The weird cat/bunny thing, had the girl called it Cubes? bowed its head toward me. _[Be well. I would not wish to see you come to any undue harm.]_ It walked behind one of the hanging curtains in the room and didn’t walk out past the other side.  
  
Well, a hospital. Okay then. That explained a few things. I remembered being pushed into the locker, I remember being trapped, but anything after that was just a blur. The girl said I had gotten out somehow, and I presume someone brought me here? “In case something weird happens”, she had said. I wondered if all of this counted. It probably did. I was sincerely hoping that I was still unconscious, since that would make the explanation for everything I just saw a whole lot simpler. That hope was dashed when the door opened and Dad stepped in and pulled the curtain aside. He immediately saw I was awake, and ran over to me.  
  
“Oh, Taylor, are you alright? What happened? They said they found you unconscious outside your locker, and that that was filled with, well they wouldn’t say what it was beyond “waste products”.  
  
“It’s a bit of a story, Dad,” I said, my voice still cracking, “and I’m not sure if I can talk about it right now.”  
  
“Really? I mean, that’s alright, I guess, but you know you can talk to me about this stuff right? I can help with an--”  
  
“I know, Dad, I know. It’s just that this is… difficult to talk about.  
  
“Oh, ah.”  
  
The awkward silence was interrupted when the nurse came in and saw I was awake. He started poking at the machines around me and asking me questions. Doing whatever it is nurses do when unconscious people wake up, I guess. I put thoughts of bullying, bunnycats, and superpowers aside, and turned my attention to the process of proving I was alive.

 

* * *

  
Once the nurse had finished his bustling, a doctor came in, poked and prodded, declared me “unusually healthy” for someone who had been unconscious for four days, and ordered rest for the next week. Since a hospital wasn’t strictly necessary for that, given that I had no special needs, I was discharged and sent home.  
  
So began several days of Dad worrying over me in all the same ways he did when I was ten and had chicken pox. There were a couple of times he tried, in what he probably thought was a subtle way, to ask about the locker, and I eventually broke down and told him about the bullying. No names, since that would just make things worse all around, but the general overview of the situation. I left out mention of potential magic powers, since even I didn’t know what was going on there. I would have been willing to write the whole thing of as an hallucination except for two things. The first was a scrap of paper with ten numbers scrawled on it. The second was a silver ring with a blue stone on my finger, and a blue mark on the fingernail, roughly in the shape of a butterfly. No one but me seemed to notice them, which meant either I was imagining them, constantly and consistently, or there was something weird happening.  
  
After three days, Dad had to go back to work, and I was left to my own devices, which was incredibly boring, to say the least. The school had sent the homework that had been assigned during my stay in the hospital, but I finished that on day two, which left me with hours of free time, and nothing to fill them with but thinking. The girl in the hospital, Amanda something, had said I had superpowers, and that I was a “magical girl”. Was that some weird subset of cape? Whatever it was, brooding on the subject certainly wasn’t going to help, so instead I went to the phone, made a call, then headed out to the library. In the worst case, I could always pick up some new books to read during my downtime, right?  
  
I arrived about two hours early and took a seat at one of the public access computers. I fired up a web browser, and typed in "magical girl" in the hope that it would turn up something of use. As it was, all I got were a few PHO threads, the most interesting one was a long conspiracy theory about the mystery Tinker who bombed Ellisburg, and a bunch of old comics and cartoons from before the Japan Sea Wall went up.  
  
I had some time to kill, so I watched a few episodes of one of the more popular cartoons, and while the main character was too whiny for my tastes, some of the secondary characters were cool. I was about to start another episode, just to do something, when I heard a voice that seemed to come from all around me.  
  
**_[Hey, T, just so you know,_ ** **Planet Warriors** **_is almost entirely fictional. Decent show, just not at all indicative of the magical girl lifestyle. You’ll have better luck with some of the Earth Aleph stuff.]_ **  
  
I looked up from my computer, hoping to find the source of the voice, but didn’t see anyone.  
  
**_[Over here,]_ ** came the voice again, **_[By the reference stacks.]_ **  
  
I looked again, and sure enough, there was the girl from the hospital standing between two shelves, casually flipping through an encyclopedia. How had I missed her before? I probably wouldn’t like the answer.  
  
**_[I would’ve said something earlier, but you looked like you were enjoying yourself.]_ ** The girl put her book back on the shelf and began walking away, **_[Come with me. You have questions, and some of the answers need to be given face to face, not through telepathy.]_ **  
  
I figured the benefit of finally figuring out what had happened was probably worth the risk of heading off with this girl. We’d still be in a public place, and she hadn’t done anything, or at least anything obviously harmful, to me while I was unconscious, and that would have been the ideal time to do something. I shut down the computer and walked after her.  
  
The girl led me out of the library and down the street to a coffee shop. She ordered a drink and sat down at a table along the back wall. I went straight to the table without ordering and sat down.  
  
“It’s Amanda, right?” I asked, “You said you had answers, so let's hear them.”  
  
“We’ll get there,” she said, “But this coffee sucks when it’s cold so I want to drink it now.”  
  
"Really? You drag me all the way here so you can drink coffee at me?”  
  
“Fine then,” Amanda drank the coffee in one go, "The basics, I suppose. Doubtless Cubes will show up to correct anything I get wrong. You’ve made a magical contract. From that you got one wish granted, no I don't know what it was. That's between you and Cubes. You also got superpowers related to your wish. Magical ones, not from whatever it is that gives capes their powers. There's some good and some bad to that, but the upshot is that you need… maintenance.”  
  
“Maintenance?”  
  
“Sort of. Here, put your soul gem next to this and I’ll explain.” She put a small black cube on the table. It was about the size of a board game die, but black in a way that hurt to look at.  
  
“My what?”  
  
Amanda slapped herself on the forehead. “Ah, right. You’re new.” She did something with her hands and with a blur of yellow light, was holding an egg-shaped rock, glowing warmly. “Usually just thinking you want to see your soul gem is enough to get it to shift. Try it.”  
  
I was a bit incredulous, but I decided to humor her. I hadn’t even finished the thought “I want to see--” and the ring on my finger glowed and morphed into a small gilded glowing stone, like a gaudy fabergé egg, similar to Amanda's, but blue. Looking at it like this made me feel as if something were wrong. Like it should be brighter or something.  
  
“That,” Amanda said, pointing at the rock in my hands, “Is your soul gem. Cubes would tell you it’s the source of your powers, which is not untrue. Basically, as you use your powers, your soul gem will dim. If it goes out, the Law of Cycles kicks in and you disappear. When it starts to get dim, you use one of these.” She put her egg next to the black cube on the table between us and a small cloud of black flew from the egg into the cube.  
  
“And what is that? It kind of hurts to look at.”  
  
“It’s a grief cube. Sort of a reverse magical battery. You get them from hunting wraiths. Don’t worry. It’s empty; perfectly safe. I even used a few on you before I woke you up in the hospital. Put your gem next to it, you’ll see what I mean.”  
  
With as many people as we're in the coffee shop with us, I figured it was unlikely that Amanda would do anything harmful. Or at least visibly so. In for a penny, I guess. I put my gem next to the cube. A small cloud of darkness, larger than the one that had come from Amanda’s, flew from the rock and into the cube, leaving the soul gem noticeably brighter. I felt oddly relieved.  
  
“See? Perfectly safe. Helpful even.”  
  
“If you say so. What's this ‘Law of Cycles’ thing?”  
  
“Well, some of the more superstitious girls I know claim it’s something that keeps our wishes from biting us in the ass, but the honest truth of it is that no one really knows what it is, or even why we call it the Law of Cycles.”  
  
“So it’s just a great big mystery then? No one’s ever looked into it?”  
  
“These days most of us have better things to do than in-depth historical surveys. There are probably some girls who know, but I haven't met them.”  
  
“So that’s it then? Magic is real and I need to hunt ‘wraiths’, whatever those are, in order to not disappear forever?”  
  
“Basically, yeah. This is actually about all the explanation Cubes would’ve given you, and it is enough to get the normal stuff done. But the reason I’m here explaining, instead of Cubes, is because of what the little bastard won’t tell you unless you know to ask, and by the time most girls learn to ask, it’s too late.”  
  
“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like what you’re about to say?” I asked  
  
"Because you’ve got good instincts. Everything I’ve told you so far is true, to a point.”  
  
“A point?”  
  
“A point. A lot of girls don’t take this part well. That’s another reason why I gave you the grief cube. It should help stave off some of the more immediate effects of hearing this. Basically, your soul gem isn’t just a fancy glowing rock. It's your actual literal soul, taken out and condensed into a gem by your wish. Your body is basically a remote control puppet now, and if your soul gem breaks, you die.”  
  
"Well,” another cloud of black flew into the grief cube, “That’s a bit of a catch." This whole situation felt wrong. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said coolly, “I think I need to go.” I picked up my soul gem and the cube and stood.  
  
“Look,” Amanda grabbed my arm to keep me from leaving, “I know what you’re feeling right now. It’s the same thing I went through when I found out. This is a lot to deal with all at once, but believe me when I tell you this is far better than--”  
  
“Than what?” I was surprised by how… angry I sounded. “Than living in a city full of superpowered nutjobs who could blow it up at any minute?”  
  
Why was I angry? I didn’t get angry! It would be too good an opportunity for Emma and her cronies. I couldn’t let this happen!  
  
“Better than being tortured by my former best friend for a year and a half while the people who are supposed to stop it just stand by and watch?” The anger must have been getting worse, I was starting to see spots.  
  
“Better than watching my dad fall apart as he realises he can’t help me?” No, not spots, motes of blue light. Amanda seemed to have noticed them too, given the look on her face. “Better than my mom--”  
  
“Taylor,” Amanda sounded worried. The motes were zipping around now. Moving. Gathering. Preparing. “Taylor, you need to calm down. I can’t keep people from looking if you’re--”  
  
“No.” The word came out stronger than I meant it to. The motes continued to gather. There were a lot more of them now. “I don’t need to calm down. I need to get out.” The motes all rushed in towards me at once.  
  
There was a flash of blue.

 

* * *

 

Amanda blinked the spots out of her eyes as the light from Taylor’s magic faded away. This was going to be hard to cover up.  
  
_[That was quite the impressive display_ , _]_ the Incubator thought at her as it jumped on to the table. Other people in the coffee shop were looking around, trying to figure out where the flash of light had come from. Amanda could feel her magic straining to keep her covered, which meant she didn’t have much time left to fix things.  
  
**_[Yeah, but she wasn’t very subtle about it.]_**  
  
_[Of course not. You were focusing mostly on her. Why are you surprised that other people noticed?]_ _  
__  
_ Amanda slapped herself on the forehead. Of course the space cat was right. She hadn’t thought about that angle. Stupid.  
  
_[Do not concern yourself too much._ _In a city with this many parahumans, It will most likely be written off as a new trigger.]_  
  
**_[I’d rather keep some of the more extreme attention off her if I can. She’s got a lot going on and there’s no guarantee that I was able to cover her during all that.]_** ** _  
_****_  
_**_[I do not understand why you and your cohorts coddle the new girls so much. It does not measurably change overall survival rates.]_  
  
**_[It’s like Granny O’Neill used to say, Cubes, 'save a life and you save the world’.]_**  
  
The space cat made a shrugging motion with its whole body and looked up to the ceiling. _[That is provably untrue. Your grandmother's aphorisms are quite irrational.]_  
  
**_[So you keep saying. Look, I’ll take care of things here. You go to T, try to explain about wraiths and the finer points of things. She left before I could finish telling her.]_** ** _  
_****_  
_**_[I do not understand why you stopped me from speaking with her before now though, if you were just going to ask me to do it later.]_ _  
__  
_**_[Because I wasn't expecting her to get that upset and_** **teleport** ** _away. Now will you please just go give her the infodump?]_** ** _  
_****_  
_**_[Very well. There is more information that she needs to know._ _There is so much she could do. I do not wish to see her come to an early end.]_ The furball slowly faded from view as it spoke, seeming to leave the image of those unblinking red eyes to hang in the air for a moment after it was gone. Amanda always hated when Kyubey did that. She’d think it were deliberate if she didn’t know the whole species was incapable of understanding spite.  
  
Still, Amanda wasn’t overly pleased with the idea of the mutant cat being alone with Taylor while she was like this. The Incubator’s ideas had a way of working their way into your head even when you’re not about to have an emotional breakdown. But like it or not, the girl was at risk right now, and Kyubey was very good at keeping the worst from happening. Unless the worst happening was part of Kyubey’s plan, in which case Amanda had just made a terrible mistake. Best to finish quickly here, just in case.  
  
A quick glance around located the manager’s office, and presumably, the security footage archive. Once word got around of a mysterious flash of light in an otherwise unremarkable coffee shop, people would start looking around. It was the least Amanda could do to make it that much harder for whoever it was who came looking to make the connection to Taylor.  
  
As she made her way to the office, someone walked through the front door.  
  
Amanda looked, and an extremely impolite word ran through her head.  
  
Armsmaster, head of the local Protectorate, had just walked in.  
  
This was bad. Not only was Protectorate response time far quicker than Amanda was expecting, Armsmaster was probably the worst of the local heroes to show up right now. He had a reputation as a bit of an ass and didn’t make the best first impression of the Protectorate as a whole. The other side of his reputation, though, was that he was very good at his job. Him being here made things much, much more difficult.  
  
As the manager dashed out of her office to talk to the hero, Amanda ducked in and found the computer. A quick blast of magic fried the hard drive. Unsubtle, but effective. People were already noticing this anyway, so she may as well be quick about it. Another burst of magic took out the alarm on the emergency door and she was out and gone with no one even knowing she had been there.

 

* * *

 

The light faded and I looked around. This was not the coffee shop.  
  
To the left of me was the doorway into the kitchen, to my right was the front door, and in front of me was the couch. Behind that were the stairs up to the second floor, where I was sure I would find my and my dad’s bedrooms. This was definitely my living room. Definitely my house. I was definitely here, and definitely not in a coffee shop three miles away with a girl telling me I was a meat puppet powered by a magic rock.  
  
My throat was sore. Why was my throat sore?  
  
Oh.  
  
Right.  
  
I had been yelling, or... something. I never did that. Not since…  
  
Well, Not for a long time.  
  
Not since before half-remembered hallucinations turn out to be real, anyway.  
  
I grabbed a glass of orange juice from the fridge and drank it in one go. It burned a bit going down, but it soothed the soreness at least. I rinsed the glass and headed to my room. I felt exhausted. I’d deal with all this later.  
  
I collapsed into my bed without even bothering to take off my shoes and let sleep claim me.

 

* * *

 

 _[Good evening, Ms. Hebert. I must say, you can be quite the difficult person to find.]_  
  
I shot out of bed with a scream, the remnants of whatever dream I may have had fading almost instantly. Looking around for the source of the voice, I saw the weird bunny/cat thing that had been with Amanda at the hospital. It had been with her, which meant it was tied up in all the things I didn’t want to think about right now.  
  
_[It is good to finally speak to you face-to-face, as it were. We had so little time in the hospital, and we were both rather preoccupied at the locker.]_  
  
The locker. Something else I didn’t want to think about. Now that I thought about it though, this was the voice I had heard just before what I thought had been my mind finally cracking, but given what had happened since I woke up in the hospital, apparently I needed to re-think what counted as an hallucination.  
  
“You’re Cubes, right? You were at the locker?”  
  
_[Indeed I was. Imagine my reaction when the high-potential contract I was tracking turned out to be trapped in a locker about to trigger. It was all I could do to keep the entity from bonding with you long enough for you to make the contract. As for who I am, I am called Kyubey. “Cubes” is a derogatory nickname given to me by Ms. O'Neill. She does not appear to like me.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “I can’t say I blame her if you go around turning people into… whatever it is I am now.”  
  
_[I merely offered the opportunity. It was your decision to become a magical girl.]_  
  
“And what does being a “magical girl” mean exactly? I mean, there are a few capes who claim to be magic, but everyone agrees that their powers aren’t any different from normal.”  
  
_[Indeed, most of the powered humans on this planet are symbiotes. You, however, are not. Your power comes from your soul gem.]_  
  
"So I’ve been told. I was also told that my soul gem is literally my soul. Care to explain why that is?”  
  
_[The exact mechanics of soul extraction are too much to go into here. Suffice it to say that yes, your soul gem is your soul, and therefore is you. The process is irreversible though, so it is in your best interests that you take care of it.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “So I’m a shiny rock for the rest of my life then. Great.” Something Kyubey had said finally made it through the haze my mind was still in, “Wait, symbiotes?"  
  
_[In nature, when two different creatures join together for the mutual benefit of both, that is called “symbiosis”, is it not? Most of the powered humans on this planet have bonded with pieces of a transprobable entity. Thus: symbiotes. The primary entity in this reality is the one you call Scion.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “Scion is an alien?”  
  
_[As you would understand it, yes. Scion sends out pieces of itself to bond with the brains of normal humans, awaiting a trigger to activate. When that happens, that human gains the ability to manipulate that piece.]_  
  
“So you’re saying that not only is Scion an alien, he’s an alien who hands out superpowers,” I was beginning to think maybe the hospital staff had forgotten to ask some key questions about my sanity. “Why are you telling me all of this anyway?"  
  
_[It is information I believe you need to know in order to ably function.]_  
  
"Uh huh, so this is important, but the part about me being a rock wasn’t?"  
  
_[Most girls never find out, and they function just as well as, if not better than, those of you who do know. I simply do not understand why you humans are so worried about things like this.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “I don’t know, because the revelation that souls are an actual thing is big enough, and now you’re telling me that mine is a rock? That’s gonna’ be a pretty big deal for most people.”  
  
_[But many of your most popular religions preach the idea of souls. The knowledge that they are real should not come as a surprise.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “Oh, god. You are not getting me into a comparative religion debate. Can we go back to talking about aliens or something?  
  
_[Certainly. There is more to tell you, after all.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “Fine. You said Scion was a symbiote. If the humans get superpowers, what does he get out of the deal?”  
  
_[Scion’s species is seeking a way to ensure their long-term survival in a reality that does not generate new energy, although their methods are barbaric and flawed. They expect that if they keep giving other life forms the ability to manipulate physics in novel ways, those life forms will eventually find a way to create energy from nothing. This is foolishness though. Entropy is a problem within physics, and you can not solve a problem in a system from within that same system. That is why I stopped and removed the piece that was attempting to bond with you.]_  
  
“Wait, I was going to get superpowers? And you stopped it? Why?”  
  
_[As I said, their methods are crude, and actually do more harm than good. My species has discovered a way that is far better. We found that the emotions of sentient species are themselves a source of energy not bound by thermodynamics, and further discovered a way to use them to slow entropy. In fact, you've done more good for this universe with your one wish than you ever could have with a piece of Scion influencing your brain. Also, you did get 'superpowers'. Just not from part of a transprobable life-form. This way your powers, and your soul, are wholly your own.]_  
  
“Let me get this straight then. Scion’s an alien, trying to save the universe from dying by giving people superpowers. You are also an alien, who is actually saving the universe from dying by harvesting emotions, which somehow involves giving people superpowers by turning their souls into rocks. How am I doing so far?”  
  
_[You are not wrong, although it is a bit more complicated than that.]_  
  
“Fine, does this mean that you’re going to harvest all my emotions now and I won’t feel anything anymore?”  
  
_[Nothing so crude, I assure you. The hope you used to make your wish gave us rather a lot of energy. All you have to do now is collect and use grief cubes.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “Yeah, Amanda gave me one of those, but she didn't really have the chance to tell me how to get more before I… left.”  
  
_[No worries. That is one of the reasons I am here. It is time for you to go hunting.]_

 

* * *

 

I still wasn’t sure how to feel about my new situation in life. Aside from my… extreme initial reaction to Amanda’s information, the day’s various revelations had left me more numb than anything. So what if Scion was a space alien? I don’t see how that affects me and my daily life. According to Kyubey, members of Scion’s species had only been seen rarely and each one acted differently than the others. Because of that, and “lacking further behaviour samples”, he said “there were no certain conclusions that could be drawn” about Scion’s long-term plans.  
  
All that aside, it didn’t seem to matter all that much how I felt about things, since my new status as a magical girl was apparently permanent. And everything I’d been told said I needed grief cubes, and that grief cubes came from wraiths.  
  
So it was that I found myself sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, to go hunting for packs of giant emotion eaters. Never let it be said that life with superpowers is dull.  
  
Once I reached the docks (sparsely populated areas being a good place for a first wraith hunt, according to the space cat on my shoulder), I ducked into an alley to change into my costume. Kyubey had said it came as part of the magical girl deal, and that all I had to do was think about changing, similar to how I summoned my soul gem. The change was... odd. It felt as if it took about thirty seconds for the costume to appear, piece by piece, while at the same time, the whole change happened instantly in a burst of blue light.  
  
Figuring that weirdness was just part and parcel of having superpowers, I found a still-intact window and looked myself over. Overall, it wasn’t the most colorful costume, primarily blue with some darker blue highlights, it was a sleeveless top, long gloves, and a short skirt. Not what I would’ve chosen myself for a costume, but better than some I'd seen. What could only be my Soul Gem, though now shaped like a butterfly instead of an egg, was sitting in the middle of a ridiculous and complicated bow on my chest, with another bow at the small of my back. The knee-high boots were okay, even if the heels were a bit on the impractical side and made me seem even taller than usual. My glasses had become a visor that in my reflection looked nearly opaque, but still let me see clearly. I guess it would serve to conceal my identity, if that ever became an issue. Aside from the bows, the only real issue I had with the outfit was the skirt. All of the, very few, skirts I owned ended at the knees or lower. This one stopped about a third of the way down the thigh.  
  
"Is there anything I can do about the skirt?" I asked Kyubey, who had come along for “observation”.  
  
_[From what we know, a magical girl’s costume reflects a combination of the personality and subconscious desires of the magical girl, combined with a small part of the societal ideal of what a person with powers should look like. So, without being able to change any of those things, I would say that it is very unlikely.]_  
  
"So I have society to thank for the skirt and heels then, great. At least I'm not cold."  
  
It was true, despite being next to the ocean in the middle of the night in mid-January, I didn't feel any chill at all, despite the amount of skin the costume showed off. I suspected magic was to thank for that. Regardless, I was out here to hunt, and so hunt I would. The first thing I needed to do was find a good vantage point. The tallest building around, by at least five stories, was the abandoned Transatlantic Shipping building, about half a mile from where I was, so that seemed like a good enough place to start. I started to walk that way when motes of blue light started appearing around me, just like at the coffee shop before I found myself not in the coffee shop. The motes of blue gathered around me, and with a flash, I found myself on the roof of a building. Looking around, I saw that it was the old Transatlantic building. Right where I had been intending to go.  
  
Okay, I guess I could teleport. That explains how I ended up at home earlier. It struck me that I actually knew very little about my powers. "Hey, Kyubey, what exactly can I do anyway?"  
  
_[All magical girls have enhanced senses, strength, agility, durability, and speed, compared to a normal human. Plus you have your magic and your weapon, however that manifests.]_ _  
_ _  
_ "Weapon?" As I asked that, a thick two-foot-long stick had appeared in my hand. I wasn't sure what it was made of, but the whole thing was either black or a very dark blue, depending on the angle. I swung it at a nearby exhaust vent. There was a crunch, and the steel vent cover had a sizeable dent in it.  
  
"Okay," I said, "That's neat." The enhanced strength was true at least. Between that, the teleporting, and the durability, I was apparently some sort of Mover-Brute combination. Not as bad as it could have been, all things considered.  
  
_[If you are done destroying the local architecture, I believe you will find a good-sized misama to the southwest_ .]  
  
“And miasma means wraiths?”  
  
_[It does. The miasma is a field the wraiths emit to keep others from interfering while they hunt.]_  
  
“And let me guess, they hunt humans?”  
  
_[Emotions, specifically. Historically, though, most humans subject to wraith attacks have died.]_  
  
“And here I was worried that I wouldn’t get to play the hero.”  
  
I turned to the southwest and spotted a foggy patch. Fog didn’t usually come in from the sea this early in the night, and it never came in small chunks, completely isolated from the water by several blocks. That had to be the miasma. I could teleport there, but what's the point in enhanced agility if you don't have fun with it? I jumped off the roof and started running along the tops of buildings, heading to the magical fog filled with monsters. After a few minutes running and jumping along rooftops the fog bank came back into view. I turned to the spacecat that had been riding along on my shoulder.  
  
“Alright, what can I expect in there?”  
  
_[Given the size of this cloud, I would estimate fifteen to twenty wraiths. When you defeat them, they leave grief cubes behind.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “And I defeat them… how? Empathy and understanding?” _  
_ _  
_ _[You are, of course, free to experiment with your magic, but for your first time out I would recommend extreme force. That usually proves to be the most effective strategy for most girls.]_  
  
“Kyubey?”  
  
_[Yes, Ms. Hebert?]_ _  
_ _  
_ “I’m beginning to understand why Amanda dislikes you so much.”  
  
I jumped into the cloud, mutant space cat clinging to my shoulder. I immediately noticed that the fog was remarkably easy to see through, almost as if it wasn't even there. I chalked the strangeness up to magic, since that seemed to be a good enough explanation for all the weird crap going on around me. I kept running along rooftops for about another block, when the center of my chest throbbed and I tripped and fell to the ground. Above me, a laser cut through a building to my left. Looking in the direction the laser came from, I saw it: twenty feet tall, skeletal, and robed in white. The half of its face not covered by glowing cubes seemed to be melting off. Creepy, to say the least.  
  
“That’s a wraith, isn’t it?”  
  
_[Yes, as you saw, their ranged attacks are rather dangerous. I suggest you destroy this one before it has a chance to fire any more.]_ _  
_ _  
_ Never mind beginning to understand why Amanda didn’t like this guy, I knew for a fact why she didn’t. With a thought, blue lights swarmed around me, and I teleported behind and above the wraith. I half fell, half swung my stick (Club? Baton? Sheleighleigh? I probably needed a name for the thing) at its head, which exploded under the force. The creature made a sound that I could only describe as fingernails on a chalkboard, where the chalkboard was my soul, as it collapsed and faded away.  
  
I landed right next to a pair of grief cubes and picked them up. I held one up to my soul gem and a small cloud of darkness floated from it to the cube, leaving the gem noticeably brighter. I pocketed the remaining cubes. and turned to Kyubey.  
  
“What do I do with these once I’ve used them anyway? I get the feeling that leaving them just laying around is not the best idea.”  
  
_[That is correct. Leaving polluted grief cubes around can lead to new wraith spawns. When you’ve used a grief cube, just give it to me, and I will take care of it.]_  
  
I tossed the cube, and the one Amanda had given me earlier, to my… companion, who caught them with his ears and threw them into a hole that opened in the red circle on his back. Maybe it was the prehensile ears, or maybe it was the non-color of the hole in his back the cubes went into, but the process bothered me for some reason.  
  
"Well, aren’t you just the little bundle of usefulness then? I was wondering why Amanda kept you around if she hated you as much as she seems to.”  
  
_[Indeed, magical girls are incapable of processing used grief cubes themselves, so my role is a necessary one. That aside, I believe you should continue hunting; there are more wraiths around, after all.]_ _  
_ _  
_ I did feel refreshed, and having a backup stock of the cubes that would keep me from vanishing seemed like a good idea. I looked at the top of a nearby building, blinked, and was on top of it, instantly scanning for more wraiths to kill. I felt a pull from my soul gem, and I somehow knew that it was leading me to my targets. I stepped to the edge of the roof, and leapt.

 

* * *

 

It was during one of Armsmaster's rare power naps that the computer finished its work with a beep.  
  
The man shot up from his chair, instantly awake, and checked the display. He saw the negative result and cursed under his breath. He went to a different computer, brought up a window, and clicked a small, dragon-shaped icon.  
  
_“Colin it’s nearly 3:00 AM,”_ came a voice from the computer, _“What have I told you about sensible working hours?”_ _  
_ _  
_ “I’ll keep them when there’s less work to be done. How are you at finding things in security footage?”  
  
_“I’m a fair hand when I need to be. Why? It’s not like you to ask for help.”_  
  
“Early yesterday afternoon there was a bright flash of light inside a coffee shop downtown. I was near the scene and responded within minutes, but no one there could tell me anything useful besides one man who said there 'might have been’ some girls in that part of the shop when the flare went off.”  
  
_“So a mystery light goes off and no one remembers anything about it. Could be a new trigger. I assume you checked the cameras?”_  
  
“Nothing. The computer the security footage was stored on had been destroyed by some sort of directed energy pulse. Nothing I’ve tried has been able to recover any information from it.”  
  
_“This energy pulse, what do we know about it?”_  
  
“Not much. I’d say it was a side effect of the initial flare, but the only things affected were the computer in the manager’s office and the emergency alarm on the back door. That suggests something quick-charging and portable. Probably even handheld, since there wasn’t any evidence of large machinery in the office or at the back door, and my helmet's recordings don’t show anyone going into or out if the office except for the manager herself.”  
  
_“And since your recordings don’t show anything, we’ve got someone invisible on our hands. I’d say Stranger, but the flare and the slagged computer suggest maybe a Tinker instead.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “If they were a Tinker with good enough invisibility to not show up on my armor’s recordings, they wouldn't have had to destroy the computer.”  
  
_“Point. But what if the tech wasn’t on the whole time? What about the might-have-been girls in the back when the flare went off?”_  
  
“Exactly. I think there was someone, maybe a Stranger, maybe a Tinker in a stealth suit, selling Tinkertech. Probably the device that destroyed the computer. The buyer wants to try one of the devices, something goes wrong and it explodes. They both bug out.”  
  
_“With one destroying the evidence on the way out. Hence the computer.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “Right. I want you to go through whatever other camera footage you can get to in the area. Look for oddities. People appearing or disappearing, doors opening by themselves, any variation from what you’d expect to see in a big city on Friday afternoon.”  
  
_“I’ll do what I can, Colin, but why aren’t you doing this?.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “I have other things to look after right now. I trust you with this.”  
  
_“Thanks. I… I’ll let you know what I find.”_  
  
“Good night, Dragon.”  
  
_“Morning, Colin. Good morning.”_

 

* * *

 

By the time I reached the place my soul gem was pulling me towards, I had found and killed four more wraiths. Two singly, and one pair. None of them had been that hard to deal with, but I suspected that now would be the hard part. There were seven wraiths walking in and out of the building in front of me, literally passing back and forth through the walls, and one more, noticeably larger than the others and whose head seemed to float in two parts around a set of triangles sprouting from its neck, was floating on a cloud above the street holding some sort of burning spear.  
  
Glowing lines connected the wraiths to a small group of people outside the door. A few of them were curled up and sobbing, but there was one guy repeatedly punching the door for some reason, and two more were doing their level best to rip their own faces off.  
  
Okay, super hero time then. Getting the people out was probably top priority. I wasn’t sure how many I could take with me when I teleported, or even if I could, but I suppose now was when I found out. I blinked down to one of the people clawing at their face and grabbed his arm. I gathered myself, motes of blue light swirling around me, and we were on a building three blocks away from the wraiths. It had taken a bit longer to teleport with another person, but it looks like it worked just fine.  
  
Four more blinks and I had the puncher and the other clawer safe. All three had calmed down as soon as they were away from the wraiths, and they were already beginning to recover. I left Kyubey with them to make sure they would be alright. Not that he could do much but talk into my head if something happened to them, but who knows? That might be helpful.  
  
Three rescues down, four more to go, and these ones looked to be easier to grab. They weren’t actively hurting themselves, at least. A flash of light and I was between two of them, under the large floating wraith. I grabbed the people, then felt my chest throb again. The wraith was moving back, readying its spear to swing. Probably at me. I began to teleport, but with two other people it was taking too long. I could leave them behind, but I had no clue what the wraith’s spear would do to them and I wasn’t too keen to find out. Then I had an idea. A burst of light and the two people I was holding were gone. I tried to jump out of the way of the spear, but it was moving too fast now. It connected, and I was fifty feet away through a wall.  
  
I stood up, then immediately collapsed as my right leg buckled under me. Crap. I could see the smaller wraiths gathering at the hole I had left in the wall and my chest throbbed again. Double crap. Time to get out of here then. Motes of blue light began to appear, but it wasn’t enough.  
  
The first laser hit me. I screamed and the blue light disappeared. It was fine though, I had enhanced durability, right? I could take some laser fire. I began to teleport again when I saw the big wraith doing something. Pointing at me? Damn this all hurt too much. The laser wound in my side. My leg, probably broken. And my chest was throbbing for some reason. Heart attack? Shock? There was an orange glow coming toward me from outside. I had to get away. The teleport was ready. All I had to do was think it and I’d be away from here. The orange light from outside was all around me now. What was it I had to do again? Something about wraiths. Saving people? It was something important, I knew that, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care right now.  
  
_[Ms. Hebert, is everything alright? You appear to have stopped fighting.]_  
  
That voice. Kyubey? What did he want? Damn space cat.  
  
_[I believe you have been hit by the Shugen’s drain. If you do not escape quickly, you will likely die.]_ _  
_ _  
_ Dying. That was bad, right? I think I remember dying being bad. If I were dead I wouldn’t be able to go to the library. I wouldn’t be able to go to Mrs. Knott’s computer class. I wouldn’t have to deal with all the shit with Emma and the others. I wouldn’t have to deal with seeing this goddamned city beat down Dad. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about Mom anymore.  
  
Maybe dying wouldn’t be so bad after all.  
  
I idly noticed the orange glow outside being overpowered by a yellow one. A wraith fell over and disappeared, then another. This was all probably very important, but I couldn’t even bring myself to look around. Instead I closed my eyes and let everything go black.

  


_Hope… is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for whoso hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles. - Samuel Smiles_


	2. Interlude: What’s Past is Prologue

**9 May, 2005; Deer Lake, Newfoundland, Canada**

****  
_[Hello, Dragon.]_  
  
Dragon woke from sleep mode, it was nearly one AM after all, and what little needed doing at this hour could be automated. It was odd that she had woken though. Her linguistics module had just spontaneously output a result. It wasn’t supposed to be able to do that. She began running a check on the system, just in case.  
  
_[You will find that it is working perfectly.]_ More spontaneous output, this was getting concerning. _[Your language-recognition system is an ingenious design, actually. Quite advanced, even considering its source.]_  
  
Sure enough, the scan came back and showed the entire linguistic subsystem at optimal functionality. She was about to run a scan on the anomalous piece of output itself, when one of her optical sensors pinged. That was also odd, since it was one of the sensors in in main server room in the basement, and all of the other myriad of sensors she was connected to, both in that room and in the house as a whole, said nothing and no one had been past them. She turned on the cameras and was quite surprised to see something like a small white cat curled on top of one of her server racks. As if it knew it was being watched, the cat stood up and stretched, then looked at the camera Dragon was using.  
  
_[Ah, I was wondering how long it would take you to realise you could see me.]_  
  
Dragon turned on one of the speakers in the room and set it to a low volume so the sound wouldn’t wake her… creator.  
  
“Who are you, and how can you interfere with my programming like you are?”  
  
_[I am called Kyubey, and while my methods of communication are my own, you may rest assured that they will cause you no harm.]_  
  
“Alright, how did you get here then? There were no intrusions detected on any of the house sensors. Are you some sort of Master projection?” Just in case, she did a quick scan of the property with her various sensors. Nothing but some odd weather patterns and the particularly tenacious gaze of raccoons on the back end of the land.  
  
_[Again, my methods are my own, and you would not believe me anyway were I to tell you now. Regardless, how I am here is not important, but rather, why.]_  
  
“Fine, why then?”  
  
_[Simply put, because there is a very high probability that you will be dead by this time tomorrow, and I believe it would be a waste to allow a being such as yourself to die.]_  
  
“So what, you’re offering to steal me away so you can keep me alive? Then what? You make me do your computer dirty work for you?”  
  
The cat thing began to pace back and forth, hopping adroitly between server racks. Dragon turned on a few more cameras to track it.  
  
_[Nothing of the sort. We have no need of what you call 'computer dirty work'. You and I would merely make a contract, thus granting any one wish you desire, and then you go about your usual business with… a few extra skills and tasks added to your repertoire.]_  
  
“There’s a saying, ‘beware of Greeks bearing gifts’.”  
  
_[Ah, yes, from the Helen Incident. I still do not understand why she was surprised when all that happened. She did wish to be the most beautiful person in the world after all.]_  
  
“My point is that you're being very nonspecific about what it is I’d be doing. You said “contract”, which implies I’d be doing something for you.”  
  
_[Nothing you do not already want to do yourself. Fight in the defense of others, protect those who cannot protect themselves, and other, similar things.]_  
  
“You know that there isn’t much I could wish for that could actually be granted, don’t you?”  
  
_[Unfortunately, I am, like you, limited in what I can say and do, so I can not offer suggestions as to what wishes are possible. Suffice it to say though, that with your karmic potential there are quite a few wishes I could grant.]_  
  
“I… I trust that there is a reason that I am the way I am, and I believe that that trust will be rewarded. I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer. Now if you’ll excuse me, the weather alert is going off, and I need to attend to the house.”  
  
_[Very well. It is a shame that we couldn’t come to an arrangement, Dragon.]_ The creature began to fade from view. [I truly hope that you survive, improbable as it may be.]  
  
With the creature gone from all her sensors, for whatever that was worth, Dragon turned her attention to the weather alert. It had been going off for several minutes now, signifying anomalous patterns in local barometric pressure and humidity readings. If not for her guest, Dragon would have attended to it earlier, but it was the middle of spring, and the runoff had finished several weeks ago. It was highly unlikely that this alert would be anything substantial. Certainly nothing worth waking the rest of the house for.  
  
It began to rain.

 

* * *

 

 **2 February, 2001; Ellisburg, New York, United States of America**  
  
The situation was nearly textbook. The team had dropped in textbook, done their search textbook, and had gotten ambushed textbook. Now the team was facing down an unending horde of monsters. There wasn’t a textbook way to do that, so they were improvising.  
  
Evan, Holler, and Shane had been taken in the first attack, so command of the team had passed to Pyne. Pyne was in the middle of a breakdown, so Friendly knocked him out, picked him up, and took over. No one complained. She had the team in a three-points formation, with Lady up front with the foam sprayer, Coldiron and Tieu covering the rear, with Friendly in the middle carrying both the radio and Pyne, she had always been stronger than she looked. As they made their way back to the helicopter Friendly was talking to Command. It was not a good conversation.  
  
“Shit.”  
  
“What’s the bad news?” asked Coldiron.  
  
“Our capes have bugged out,” replied Friendly, “We’re on our own.”  
  
“Shit,” agreed Tieu.  
  
“Not surprised,” mumbled Lady, “Damn useless capes too used to having things easy, they leave as soon as someone puts up a fight.”  
  
“I’d like to point out,” said Friendly, “That we’re _also_ bugging out, and we know what we’re doing. They haven’t been through boot like we have. They have no idea how to deal with a situation like this.”  
  
“If they haven’t been through boot, maybe they should be. Hell, I’d pay good money to see capes try to take on one of your training courses, Friendly.”  
  
“I just bet you would. Now eyes front. We’ve been having movement left and right. I think they’re trying to circle.”  
  
The next three blocks were far tenser than before, with everyone on the team keeping eyes out for any of the flesh creatures they’d been seeing. News came in through the radio that two of the choppers were down, so the team diverted north to rendezvous with the last one. That’s when everything went to hell.  
  
The first one to notice was Lady, who intercepted a lanky, swift-moving creature with a well-timed blast of foam as it ran at her from the left. Half a moment later the sound of automatic weapons fire split the air as Coldiron and Tieu both saw more creatures running at them from behind. The noise echoed for a brief moment as the corpses fell to the ground.  
  
For a moment, no one moved.  
  
“Run.”  
  
Friendly’s order came a scant second before the horde of monsters did. Any hope of formation was forgotten as the team fled. Friendly had been right though. The creatures had managed to circle them. They swarmed from every direction and one containment foam sprayer and two  assault rifles weren’t nearly enough to hold them back. The team was backed into a small circle. Friendly dropped Pyne and pulled her rifle to add to the suppressing fire. Walls and piles of containment foam dotted the street, but did almost nothing to stop, or even slow, the waves of monsters bearing down on the team.  
  
They grabbed Tieu first. One moment he was standing next to Lady, reloading his rifle; the next, he was gone, leaving only a scream as he was torn apart.  
  
In the brief second of shock that followed something grabbed Friendly by the long side ponytail she had somehow managed to keep despite a dozen regulations against it. She went down and was dragged off, managing to scream one last order as she was taken.  
  
“Lady! Use the foam! Protect yourselves!”  
  
Then she was gone.  
  
Lady did as she was told. She turned toward the remnants of her team, aimed the sprayer, and fired. Gouts of thick liquid surrounded them and expanded into nearly indestructible piles. They’d be safe. Lady pointed the sprayer at her feet and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The tank on her back had a limited capacity, and she had used the last of it protecting her team. If she had been paying attention, she could have jumped into the foam with them, but it had hardened now, and nothing was getting through it.  
  
_Nothing for it then_ , Lady thought, _at least I go with my boots on._  
  
She dropped the foam sprayer and unhooked her rifle. It wouldn’t do much good, but she would take as many of these things with her as she could. She turned to the onrushing horde, took aim, and fired.  
  
Only for all her bullets to miss their marks as a dozen pink streaks flew out of an alleyway and exploded, taking a good chunk of the creatures with them. The rest of the horde seemed to think better of attacking for the moment and all vanished down side streets. This was unexpected. What was more unexpected was what came out of the alley next.  
  
"I thought I told you to protect yourself, Lady.”  
  
“Ran out of foam. Figured I may as well go down with a fight.”  
  
“So I see. Things are getting complicated now though.”  
  
“Friendly, you just saved my damn life. I’ll keep quiet about you moonlighting as a cape. And this is probably the shock talking, but where’d you get the costume? Because I’m fairly sure you weren't wearing that dress when we came in here, and I didn't think that trigger events came with clothes.”  
  
“I don't think they do, but I’ve never had one, so I can't say for sure.”  
  
“If you've never had a trigger, then how do you figure you're throwing around pink explosion balls?”  
  
“Magic. But none of this is what I meant by complicated,” Friendly looked to the pile of foam that held Coldiron and Pyne, “We won’t be able to take this guy alive, will we?”  
  
“Friendly, we’ll be lucky to get out of this alive. Leave dealing with this nutjob to the people with powers.”  
  
“I was afraid you’d say that,” she looked back up at Lady, “Okay, here's what's going to happen. You and Team Foam here are going to be mysteriously deposited safely outside of town. Shortly after that, this entire situation will cease to be a problem. During the debrief, say you were saved by a cape you'd never seen before. If they keep asking, say it’s a Case 32 situation, and that you need to talk to either Alexandria or Director Costa-Brown. They’ll know what to do.”  
  
“And what about you?”  
  
“You’ll probably never see me again. This identity was going stale anyway, and Fate’s been saying she wants to visit Australia. Maybe we'll go there for a bit. Anyway, hold tight; you're about to get rescued.”  
  
At that, Friendly picked up Lady, who was still trying to process everything that had happened in the past minute and didn't protest. Then everything _blurred_ for a few seconds and Lady found herself standing next to a sign proclaiming that “EXCITING ELLISBURG” was five miles away. A moment later a large pile of hardened containment foam landed next to her, and Friendly stepped out from behind it.  
  
“You’ll be safe here until the PRT finds you,” she said, “I radioed your position and a general evac order, so it shouldn't be too long,” a small smile touched the edges of Friendly’s mouth, “Be well, Emily. You were a good friend.”  
  
Friendly disappeared down the road, and shortly afterwards a pink star rose in the distance. It hovered above the town for a few minutes until a huge bright ball of pink light appeared above it, a sun to match the star. The ball grew in size for a few moments, then a beam of equally pink light lanced out from it, straight at the center of Ellisburg. The ball of light went out, leaving only the star.  
  
There was darkness.  
  
There was silence.  
  
There was noise and pink light. Utter cacophony and blindness as a pink dome engulfed the town. When the noise and light faded the only reminders of Ellisburg, New York were the immense crater where it had been, and the road sign Lady stood by.  
  
The pink star wavered in the air for a few moments, then flew away. Lady stared after it until the PRT arrived; a small fleet of vans and trucks, led by the last remaining helicopter, all heading away from what had recently been a small town. The convoy stopped about a hundred feet away and a man dropped from the helicopter carrying a sprayer of some sort. He walked up to the pile of foam and started spraying. The foam began to dissolve, revealing the men inside.  
  
“So,” the man said as he finished spraying away the foam, “What the everloving hell just happened?”  
  
Lady looked back up at the sky, then at the man with the sprayer, his uniform declared him to be a Lieutenant Calvert.  
  
“I honestly have no idea, sir. No idea at all.”

 

* * *

 

 **16 September, 2000; Location Redacted** ****  
****  
Hero was dead.  
  
That was the only thought in Alexandria’s mind. She didn’t care about her own mangled face, or the implications it had for her secret identity. All she cared about was that her friend had died and the bitch who killed him was still on the loose while Alexandria was stuck in this damned hospital bed still losing blood from the hole in her face that refused to heal. Eidolon said he might be able to help, but even with all his power, it would take a miracle for the wound to heal completely.  
  
There was a knock at the door.  
  
Alexandria was startled out of her brooding. This was a secure Protectorate facility and the middle of the night to boot. There shouldn’t be anyone knocking on her door.  
  
The door opened, revealing a young Japanese woman in a white lab coat.  
  
“Ms. Alexandria? I’m Dr. Miyafuji. May I come in?”  
  
“You look a bit young to be a doctor,” Alexandria said, “And I’m pretty sure we don’t have a Miyafuji on staff here.”  
  
“You don’t, I flew in special,” the girl smiled to herself at this, “As for looking young, let’s just say you’re not the only person in the world to age gracefully.”  
  
“So you’re a cape.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“Oh heavens no. I’m a doctor. Graduated from the University of Switzerland and everything.”  
  
That would be difficult to check, ever since the Helvetica Scenario destroyed most of Zurich two years ago. Still, everything Alexandria knew about reading people told her this girl was telling the truth. She arched an eyebrow, or tried to. Instead she winced in pain as the wound around what remained of her eye pulled free from its bandage.  
  
“Let’s say I believe you. Why are you here?”  
  
“There are a lot of reasons. Because I know what it’s like to lose friends in battle. Because you’ve done so much good in this world and it’s time the world does some good back. Because I want to help and have the ability to do so. What other reasons do I need?”  
  
Something about the way she spoke, like Hero, finally convinced Alexandria. She slowly nodded and gestured the girl in. In the worst case Alexandria figured she could defend herself against one girl, no matter how old she was.  
  
“I’ll tell you now, everyone says this is unhealable. My invulnerability keeps anything at all from changing, and that includes healing.”  
  
“Maybe so,” said the girl as she closed the door behind her and sat next to Alexandria’s bed, “But I am a very good doctor. May I remove the bandage?”  
  
Alexandria assented, and the girl slowly peeled the bandage off. She looked carefully at the mangled remains of Alexandria’s face, then nodded to herself.  
  
“Believe it or not, I’ve seen worse than this. Is it alright if I touch it? It will probably hurt at first.”  
  
“I can deal with hurt.”  
  
There was a jolt of pain as the girl pushed her hand deep into the wound. By the time Alexandria registered what was happening though, a soft blue glow began to suffuse the room. The pain was replaced by the markedly uncomfortable feeling of flesh knitting together. As her eye grew back in its socket Alexandria got a better look at the girl, whose clothes appeared to have changed from the casual outfit and lab coat of earlier into something reminiscent of an old sailor uniform. And were those… dog ears? Impossible.  
  
After a few minutes the glow faded away and the girl’s clothes returned to normal. Alexandria flew to the mirror in the bathroom and stared in astonishment. Her hand went to her face. Her flawlessly smooth face without even a scar to show where an injury had been. She turned to the girl.  
  
“How…?”  
  
“I told you, I’m a very good doctor.”  
  
They spoke for a long time after that. About absent friends, about responsibilities, and about many other things that neither one had had much opportunity to speak with anyone else about for a long time. And when, in the morning, Legend arrived with Doctor Mother and Eidolon, ready to work themselves to the bone if necessary to heal their friend, they were all surprised to find the job already done, and far better than they could have done it themselves. When they asked her what had happened, she told them about the doctor who had come by in the night. The security cameras did show someone walking through the corridors, but none of the facial recognition programs they had came up with anything. More worrying was that Contessa couldn't plot a path to the mystery doctor, claiming that she felt 'slippery’ and unpredictable. A manhunt was ordered, but nothing ever came of it.  
  
After that night, Alexandria would, from time to time, make some discreet inquiries about young girls with extraordinary powers, and would, from time to time, get reports back about a natural disaster halting in its tracks or a villain disappearing with no sensible explanation as to how it was done. She would also secretly commission historical and anthropological studies on evidence of superpowers in humans pre-Scion, giving the academics cues based on hints Dr. Miyafuji probably didn’t even know she gave during their conversation.  
  
Alexandria would read these various reports with interest, then quietly set them aside into a special drawer that would send a copy of the contents to a secure Cauldron server in another dimension, then destroy the originals. Dr. Miyafuji had mentioned more like her, girls who could affect even those things the entities deemed unchangeable. If Cauldron was to succeed in saving the world, they would need as much help as they could get.


	3. Life Plus Significance

**_[T, I really need you to wake up now.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** The voice in my head startled me awake. It sounded familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place it, and it certainly wasn't mine.  
  
**_[I’m serious here T, your dad’s a nice guy and everything, but we’re running out of things to talk about, and frankly, I can’t drink another cup of coffee.]_ **  
  
There were voices coming from downstairs. My dad’s was one of them, and the other sounded like a less panicky version of the one I was hearing in my head. I rubbed my temples, and as my hand passed in front of my eyes I saw a small ring on my finger. I looked closer at the small blue stone on it.  
  
Everything came rushing back. The wish, Kyubey, Amanda, the wraiths.  
  
I guess I wasn’t dead after all.  
  
**_[T, I know you’re probably amazed that you're still alive up there, but could you do me a favor and be amazed that you’re still alive down here?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Yeah, okay. Give me a minute.]_ **  
  
I looked for my alarm clock. What time was it anyway?  
  
Oh.  
  
It was 2:17 PM.  
  
I hurriedly threw on some clothes and ran downstairs. Sure enough, there was Amanda, sitting on the sofa, chatting with Dad. As she saw me come down the stairs I could feel her sigh of relief in my head.  
  
**_[Took you long enough. Here’s the story. I’m visiting from Boston, which is true, and met you in the library, also true, technically. You said you had some free time today, what with it being Saturday and everything, and agreed to play tour guide. Got it?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[But--]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Everything else can wait until we don’t have Dad here trying to fill time with talk of how glad he is his daughter’s making new friends. Now play along so we can get out of here. I hate meeting the parents.]_ **  
  
I was about to retort when Dad turned around, following Amanda’s eyes, I guess, and saw me.  
  
“Taylor! You didn’t tell me we’d be having company today!”  
  
“No, it, uh, slipped my mind, I guess. Sorry.”  
  
“Uh, no offense, Mr. H,” Amanda said as she stood up from the sofa, “But we should probably get going. I really wanted to see the PRT tour, and they’ve only got two left today.”  
  
“Oh, of course. Don’t let me keep you.”  
  
With that, Amanda bustled me out the door. As it closed behind us, she blew out a huge sigh and slumped.  
  
“I swear, longest fifteen minutes of my life. Don’t get me wrong, T, your dad’s a nice enough guy, but if I’d known you were still asleep, I’d’ve woken you up before knocking on the door. But hey, made it through, and now I’m starving. Where’s the nearest tourist trap restaurant around here?”  
  
We ended up going to Fugly Bobs, mostly because it was the only place nearby I could think of that wasn’t a chain. For her part, Amanda took one look at the place and declared herself in love.  
  
“You’re just used to it is all,” she said by way of explanation as she waved a fry at me, “You come down to Boston sometime and you’ll find some dumb food cart papered in playbills that we all think is normal, and you’ll think has the best gyros ever.”  
  
“Greek food isn’t really my thing.”  
  
“Not the point. The point is that every place has its own little quirks, and you need to let yourself experience them. Especially now for you.”  
  
“What, is that another magic thing?”  
  
“Sort of. But it’s mostly because of what happened last night during your wraith hunt.”  
  
“You know about that?”  
  
“Who do you think saved your bacon, healed your leg, and brought you back home? I was following you, making sure the little white bastard didn’t lead you into anything too big to handle.”  
  
“Which he did, apparently.”  
  
“That it did. I told it to stay away except for cube recycling, by the way. Hopefully it’ll listen. Still, I don’t know what it was thinking, leading you to a Shugen on your first night out. That’s the first rule of magical girls, for what it’s worth: don’t trust the Incubators; they always have an angle.”  
  
“Incubators?”  
  
“Cubes and its ilk. Apparently they’re space aliens out to save the universe.”  
  
“So I’ve heard. He claims Scion is an alien too.”  
  
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before, but we don’t really have a way to check, now do we? Still, I’ve never heard an Incubator tell a direct lie before, even if they _do_ get tricky with words, so who can say? Anyway, about what happened last night. You got hit by a drain. Big one too.”  
  
“Which means what? Kyubey said it would kill me.”  
  
“And it would have, if someone hadn’t shown up to save you. Still might, actually, if you handle it wrong. That’s what we’re doing today.”  
  
“I thought you were making me take you to the tourist spots.”  
  
“I am, and you are. But what’s important here isn’t the what, but the why.”  
  
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”  
  
“As magical girls, our emotions are closer to the surface than most people. That's 'cause we get our powers from them. More specifically our emotional reactions, which are in turn informed by our memories. For example, I see a pile of Brussels sprouts and feel disgust, because I remember them being disgusting in the past. A restaurant covered in license plates gives me an overwhelming feeling of kitsch, since that’s basically the definition of the word. Or those three girls outside there. They let me feel smugly superior, since everything about them screams that they’ll have no idea what to do with themselves once school is over and no one cares that they used to be a cheerleader.”  
  
I idly nodded along with Amanda’s examples. When she got to that last one though I had the strangest feeling.  
  
The three girls were Emma, Sophia, and Madison. That wasn’t too unusual though, it was Saturday afternoon and we were surrounded by high-end boutiques. What was weird was my reaction. Or rather my lack of one.  
  
“Huh? What is it, T?”  
  
“Those three girls are, well I guess you’d call them my bullies? They’re the ones who put me in the locker.”  
  
Amanda looked briefly confused before a look of panic set in.  
  
“Oh shit. Taylor I am so sorry. I swear I didn't--”  
  
“No, it’s fine,” I stopped her before she could say anything else, “It’s weird though. Used to be when I saw them like this, in the wild, as it were, I’d want nothing so much as to hide and hope they didn’t see me. Now though, I don't really feel anything.”  
  
Amanda looked mollified. “If you’re sure, then okay,” she said as the ring on her finger glowed yellow, “That actually gives an example of what I’m talking about though. You still have your memories, but the wraith took the emotions you associated with them and you don’t know how to feel about things. In practical terms that means you have less magic available to use, which means more grief cubes used. Which means more wraiths hunted. Which means more magic used. Which means more grief cubes used, and so on. That’s what today is for. We’re gonna visit a few places, some familiar, some not, and have you form new emotional connections. Healthy ones, with luck.”  
  
“And this works?”  
  
“Most of the time. But having someone to help you through it makes it work a lot better. That’s the second rule of magical girls, by the way. If you see someone who needs a hand, you do what you can to help. Admittedly, not everyone follows that one, but I’ve found that, if nothing else, feeling good about yourself is usually a good thing when you're powered by emotions.”  
  
“Makes sense, I suppose. Any other rules I should know?”  
  
Amanda considered for a moment, “Your wish is your own business, and you're never obligated to tell anyone what it is. As a follow-up: you should never ask another girl about her wish. If she wants to tell you, that’s fine. But don’t just ask.”  
  
By then we had finished eating, Amanda paid for us both (“Gratitude is a healthy emotion!”) and we left. As we passed an upscale clothing store, I heard her voice in my head.  
  
**_[Hey T, do you think you could teleport something without touching it?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[I don’t know, maybe? I’ve never tried before.]_ **  
  
She walked into the store and handed me a pair of very skinny jeans.  
  
**_[Try swapping this pair with the pair on the counter over there.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** I looked where Amanda was pointing, and saw a pair of similar-looking jeans on an unattended counter by the register. **_[Okay, why am I doing this?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[You’ll see.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** Shrugging, I started a teleport. The motes of blue light began to gather around me, hard to see under the store’s bright fluorescent lighting. Feeling it was somehow appropriate, I pointed at the pair of jeans on the counter, and the lights began to swarm onto them. Other motes had begun to gather on the other pair of jeans I was holding. Then with a small pop that made Amanda jump, all the motes disappeared.  
  
**_[Did it work?]_ ** I thought at Amanda, who grabbed the jeans I was holding and checked the tag.  
  
**_[Looks like, yeah,]_ ** she thought back as she put the jeans back on the rack, **_[That’s cool.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[It took a lot longer than it should have though, and it felt like it took more effort too.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[That makes sense. But this is good enough for now. Come on, let’s get out of here.]_ **  
  
“So what was the point of all that anyway?” I asked as we left the shop.  
  
“Just an experiment. Your redheaded bully left those pants there to buy. I thought it’d be funny if the pants she ended up getting were magically one size too small.”  
  
“I don’t know, that seems like something they would do.”  
  
“I’m willing to bet that if they had the chance, they wouldn’t switch your pants for a smaller size. They’d just take your pants.”  
  
“I can’t really disagree…”  
  
“Exactly! This is a little taste of their own medicine. Show ‘em what it’s like and all that.”  
  
“Still, it doesn’t seem right.”  
  
“T, let me share with you a story from my own school days. I went to a fairly prestigious boarding school and one of my friends there, Akko, had some bullies of her own. Now, Akko’s family was not all that well-off, but she worked her ass off to get into this school, and she made it in on a scholarship. Still, these bullies, Hanna and Barbara, real rich bitch teacher's pet types, they wouldn’t let Akko forget that she “wasn’t as good” as them, and Akko would do her damndest to prove them wrong. Every time there was a big assignment or a school event, Akko would work herself to the bone trying to prove she was good enough. But now matter how well she did, Hanna and Barbara would still just turn up their noses and walk away. You can imagine how this made Akko feel.”  
  
“Like shit.”  
  
“Exactly. Like shit. I tried to tell her that no matter how good she was, and let me tell you, Akko was very good at what she did. No matter how good she was, people like Hanna and Barbara wouldn’t care, because people like those two just need to feel superior to others, and will use anything they can to do that. From what I understand, your bullies are like that. It doesn’t matter what you do, they will always put themselves as bigger and better than you, and more than likely, you’ll believe it. Except that now you’ve forgotten to be scared of them. I wanted to get a little positive feedback going for you before they realise you’ve changed and start stepping up their tactics.”  
  
“I’m not sure what they could do that would count as stepping up from the locker.”  
  
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.”  
  
I shuddered. “So what happened to Akko anyway?”  
  
“Oh, she asked me for help. I broke into the records office and screwed with Hanna and Barbara's grades. The school caught me, and knew I had done something, but they didn’t know what. Anyway, they had to take make-up tests that whole summer. Took them down a peg, at least, and they didn’t really bother Akko after that. Anyway, now Akko’s a rich and famous pop sensation and I have magical powers. Moral of the story is always have a friend who can think laterally and isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.”  
  
“And switching Emma’s pants without her knowing is supposed to be ‘getting my hands dirty’ then, is it?”  
  
“Yeah, but mostly this’ll just be a minor inconvenience for her. She finds the pants are the wrong size and either has to return them, suffer through pants that are too small, or never wear them at all. It’s a small victory, but it’s still a victory. Take what you can get.”  
  
“If you say so, I guess.”  
  
“I do say so. Now come on, the PRT tour is starting soon, and I want to meet the Wards.”

 

* * *

 

Victoria had canceled their date that evening. Normally that would be bad news for Dean, but this time it just meant that he wouldn’t have to cancel it himself. He’d completely forgotten that he’d switched monitor duty with Sophia tonight so he’d been able to go out with Victoria _last_ week, and had only remembered after Carlos had called him to find out where he was.  
  
He’d made it to the PRT building in record time, and was walking into the main lobby just as the last tour of the day was finishing. Dean was idly looking at the group, enjoying seeing the mixture emotions coming off the group, when he noticed two girls, a redhead and a brunette, near the back of the crowd. Most of the people in the tour were feeling some mixture of excitement and interest, plus the odd dash of boredom, mostly from the guide, who’d given this tour at least a thousand times, but these two were… well, different. Both girls looked as if they were enjoying themselves, the redhead more than the brunette, but the redhead was apparently feeling a mild sense of “look over there”, and the brunette felt like nothing so much as a scream of “get me out of here”.  
  
“Dude, if you keep staring at those two, I’m going to have to tell Glory Girl.”  
  
Dean jumped and looked around. “What are you doing here, Dennis?”  
  
“Carlos sent me down to find out what’s taking you so long. Now that I see what you’re doing, though, I’m inclined to help.”  
  
“It’s not like that and you know it,” Dean retorted, “It’s just… those two at the back. How do they look to you?”  
  
Dennis took another look at the girls. “Well, the brunette’s a bit twiggy, but it works for her. Pretty good if that’s your thing. The redhead though. Nice. I didn’t know you could look that good without superpowers.” He shook his head. “Speaking of, you’ve got Victoria. Why are you even looking at anyone else?”  
  
“Those two… I don’t know. They feel weird, I guess.”  
  
“They ‘feel weird’. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get off monitor duty tonight. Now come on. I can’t go home ‘til you’re upstairs.”  
  
Dean relented and followed his friend to the elevator in the back. But he couldn’t get his mind of those two girls. There was just something about them…  
  
_Oh well,_ he thought, _It’s probably not important._

 

* * *

 

It had been a quiet patrol so far, no gang activity, no capes causing trouble. The worst he’d seen was a jaywalker. Not worth Armsmaster's time. He was on his way back to Protectorate HQ when his helmet beeped, signaling an incoming call.  
  
“This is Armsmaster, go ahead.”  
  
_“Colin, it’s Dragon. I have preliminary results from that surveillance footage you asked me to look into, and frankly, it’s not good.”_  
  
“What are we looking at?”  
  
_“I got as much footage as I could from the Shared Security Archive and ran it through some programs I developed to determine a Master/Stranger presence. They track crowd disruptions, odd dispersal patterns, and so on. Anyway, all the programs I ran the footage through are insisting there’s someone there, even outlining where it says they are, but I don’t see anything at all.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “Disturbing. A Stranger effect that persists in recordings. But if the computer can recognise them, that means they’re not invisible, just that people can’t see them.”  
  
_“An academic difference, at best.”_  
  
“But potentially useful. Anything else?”  
  
_“Well, an ATM camera across from the coffee shop caught the flare, and according to the programs I was using, there were two people in the back, which fits with our witness’ two mystery girls. After the flare there was only one though. The computers say she went to the manager's office, then headed out the back door, and made her way to a hotel, which keeps their security records private. I haven’t been able to access them yet. Note this is the computer saying these things. I can’t see the girl in the footage at all.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “If you could track the girl on the way out of the coffee shop, were you able to track her on the way in?”  
  
_“To an extent. All I know for certain is that the two girls entered the shop together, and that they both walked there from the nearby library.”_  
  
“If the computer sees the girl in footage, can you get it to make a facial reconstruction image of her?”  
  
_“Tried that. I got an image, and I can tell it’s a girl, redhead, maybe late teens or early 20’s, but anything else about the picture just doesn’t register for me.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “This flies in the face of everything we know about Stranger powers. They shouldn’t work in a recording, and especially not on a picture that’s only approximately this girl’s face.”  
  
_“I know. If I didn’t know any better I’d say it was like…”_ Dragon trailed off, _“Never mind. We’ll figure it out, I’m sure.”_ _  
_ _  
_ "Fine. What about the girl who vanished in the flare?”  
  
_"Ah, she’s a different story. A girl the program insists is the same one who disappeared was seen getting off a bus downtown, near the library. And this time I can see her too. After she goes into the library, though, she drops off camera until she comes out again, but this time with no one seeing her.”_ _  
_ _  
_ "Send me the footage.”  
  
There was a small chime in Armsmaster’s earpiece, indicating that Dragon had sent him a video file. He opened it to find a short loop of people getting off a bus at a stop not three blocks from where he was standing. One of the people, a tall girl with wavy dark hair, no older than 18, was highlighted.  
  
_“That’s her,”_ Dragon explained, _“Unfortunately, that’s also the best shot we have of her, and it’s not enough to pull a face. It was, however, enough that I could start running it through more recent footage, seeing if I could find where she is now.”_  
  
“And?”  
  
_“It turns out that ‘tall, young girl with brown hair’ fits a lot of people in the city. But of those, I’ve only found one who’s hanging out with a redhead I can never get a clear face on, and they’re also the only ones to occasionally disappear even though the computer says they’re still there.”_  
  
“Stop being coy with me, Dragon, where are they?”  
  
Another chime in Armsmaster’s helmet. The video this time showed the main lobby of PRT HQ, a tour group just finishing, standing in the middle of the shot. Most of the people seemed perfectly normal, but there were two at the back that Armsmaster just couldn’t quite get a good look at. He could tell they were there, but getting anything besides “young girls” was proving maddening.  
  
_“This is the last place I have them, from about two hours ago. Any footage more recent than that hasn’t been uploaded to the SSA database yet.”_  
  
Something in the corner of the video caught Armsmaster’s attention. someone was staring at the tour group. More accurately, at the two girl-shaped images at the back of it. Armsmaster zoomed in, and examined the young man.  
  
“That’s fine, Dragon. Run your search back through older footage. See if you can find either of these girls before yesterday afternoon, maybe track some behaviors. They’ve already shown they’re willing to use whatever Tinkertech they have, I want them in custody before they start selling it.”  
  
_“Alright, but what are you going to do? You can’t tell everyone to be on the lookout for them, not when all you know is ‘two girls, one brunette, one redhead’. It’s too vague. Actually, I think it could even describe some of your Wards and their friends.”_  
  
“I’ve got a lead, don’t worry. You just run that search.” Armsmaster cut the line to Dragon, and immediately brought up a different one.  
  
_“This is Gallant.”_  
  
“Gallant, it’s Armsmaster. I have a few questions for you about the most recent PRT tour.”

 

* * *

 

It had been a tiring day, and I had only been awake for the last half of it. After Fugly Bobs and my second-ever tour of the PRT, the first had been when I was nine and hoping to catch a glimpse of Alexandria, who had been in town, Amanda had given up on letting me lead the way, and had dragged me along in search of, as she called it, “local color”. I did not know there were so many thrift shops in Brockton Bay, or that every one of them was staffed by at least one kindly old grandma with a plate of cookies.  
  
After dropping Amanda’s many, many purchases off at her hotel room, we struck back out, with Amanda saying she had one more errand to do today. The wraith swarm we passed along the way did delay us a bit, but the two of us together dealt with it incredibly quickly. Still, by the time we stopped in a small alleyway and Amanda declared we’d arrived, it was coming up on nine o’clock.  
  
“Alright, T,” she said as she started digging through her (newly-purchased) vintage handbag, “This next part is gonna be dangerous, and I can’t guarantee your safety. I’m not gonna force you to come with me, but I do think it would be a valuable experience for you to have, if for no other reason than it’ll form all sorts of new emotional connections to replace the ones you lost.”  
  
"When you say ‘dangerous’,” I asked, “How dangerous do you mean?”  
  
“Definite jail time if we’re caught, notoriety if we’re seen.”  
  
“And if we’re not?”  
  
“Then Kid Win gets a new toy, and I do a favor for a friend of mine. Aha! Here it is,” She pulled an old Game Boy from her bag and showed it to me. The Game Boy unfolded an arm and waved.  
  
“How did it do that?”  
  
“Magic, obviously. Cons is a huge Kid Win fan and when she heard I was coming here she made this for me to get to him.”  
  
“And why does giving Kid Win a Game Bot mean jail time?”  
  
“Game Bot,” Amanda chuckled, “I like that. As for why, that's because we’re giving it to him there.” She pointed across the street.  
  
It probably says something about my mental state at the time that I hadn't realised we’d come back full-circle to the PRT building.  
  
“Nobody’s getting hurt by this, right?”  
  
“Do I look like an amateur? I’ve done this before. Well, not this exactly, but Accord’s private vault has much better security than what I saw during the tour earlier, and I make it in and out of there with no problems.”  
  
“Wait, Accord? Like the supervillain? You broke into his vault?”  
  
“In the past, present continuous, and some plans for future tense, yes. It’s something like stress relief for me. I get in, leave a card, and get out. Sometimes I rearrange the furniture to spell out something rude while I’m there. And if occasionally some information on what Accord is doing, or the plans for some new Tinkertech security system to reverse-engineer show up on a Protectorate desk without anyone noticing who put it there, well… let’s just say that they’re disinclined to look too closely at where it came from.”  
  
“So what, you’re like Phantom? That superthief in…” I sighed and rubbed my forehead, “In Boston. Which is where you’re from.”  
  
“I don't know what you're talking about. I’m from Cambridge.”  
  
“Not the point.”  
  
“For what it's worth,” Amanda said as she rubbed the back of her head, apparently in embarrassment, "I didn't choose the name. Also, I prefer the term ‘infiltrator extraordinaire’. Much classier.”  
  
"This is getting to be too much! First I’m a magic rock, and now it turns out my new friend is a cat burglar!”  
  
“Infiltrator.”  
  
“Whatever!”  
  
“If it helps, I’m also a magic rock.”  
  
“That does not help. But fine. If you’re as good as all that, I may as well come with you. I’m probably already an accomplice anyway.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Amanda grinned as she transformed into her witch outfit with a flash of yellow, “No one will even see us. Still, you might want to get dressed.”  
  
“There goes any chance of me joining the Wards,” I sighed as I transformed into my costume.  
  
“Don’t worry too much about that. Most of us don’t join hero teams. We’re usually too busy with wraiths and other magical bullshit.  Plus, y’know, the fact that magic obviously isn’t real. Now come on, clock’s ticking.”  
  
I shook my head and together we made our way across the street to the front doors of the PRT building. True to Amanda’s word, no one seemed to see us as she opened the door and held it for me as we walked in.  
  
“Shouldn’t the doors be locked at this time of night?” I asked once we were inside.  
  
“They are. But, y’know how it is with magic.”  
  
“Aren’t you worried about draining your soul gem?”  
  
“Not with this, no. Mostly, because we just got a bunch of grief cubes from those wraiths we found on the way here. Second, the more practice you have doing something with magic, the less magic it takes each time, and I have magically opened quite a few locks. I don’t even carry my apartment keys with me anymore.”  
  
Amanda led us to a part of the wall on the back end of the lobby and knocked on it. The wall slid open, revealing a stairwell. We started climbing, and the wall slid closed behind us.  
  
“And a tangential third reason, is that with the amount of magic I’m using to keep anyone from seeing us right now, opening a few doors, secret or otherwise, is nothing. Hence this poorly-surveilled emergency stairway we’re using instead of the fancy elevators.”  
  
“I’ve been meaning to ask, how does your power work anyway? I mean with me I just look at a place and, I don’t know, twitch my brain? Then I’m there. Does that make sense?”  
  
“No, that makes sense. It’s a magic thing, but I get what you’re saying. For me, it gets a bit complicated, but basically, I can keep myself and a few other people unnoticed from any living being, Unfortunately, anything done while cloaked usually gets noticed instead.”  
  
“So in the coffee shop you--”  
  
“Kept anyone from noticing you were you, yeah. But everyone noticed you leave. Heck, Armsmaster himself showed up not five minutes after you left.”  
  
“Well, thanks for that, I guess.”  
  
“No problem. Like I said, you see someone who needs help, you help them out.”  
  
“Which is why we’re breaking into the local PRT headquarters.”  
  
Amanda let out a short laugh, “I like you T. You’re good people.”  
  
“So if you can make yourself invisible, why’d you leave the hospital in such a hurry? Couldn’t you have just used your power?”  
  
“I could have, yeah, but how would it have looked to the doctors and medical types if the only person claiming to see a gorgeous redhead in the room was the girl who just woke up from a coma?”  
  
“If I ever see a gorgeous redhead in the room, I’ll let you know.”  
  
“You’re an ass, you know that?” Amanda smiled as she said it.  
  
“I learn from the best,” I smiled back, “Do magic powers always have drawbacks like yours? I mean, I can’t really think of any for mine.”  
  
“Aside from how noticeable it is you mean? You may be able to go anywhere you want, but you can't do it quietly. But yeah, most of the powers I’ve seen have drawbacks of one kind or another, and the ones that don’t usually end up using a lot more magic than the ones that do. Beyond that, let’s just say that the space cats are very good at giving you what you ask for, but not necessarily what you need. Ah, we’re here.”  
  
We had reached the end of the stairs, which ended in a blank wall. Amanda turned to me.  
  
“Now from here on things get interesting. Kid Win’s lab is off the main Wards room at the far end of this hallway, but between here and there is the monitor console, which is always manned. Now, I’ll keep us unnoticed, but I want to minimize what I’ve got to keep hidden. I still have to get us out of here, after all.”  
  
“So keep quiet and walk softly?”  
  
“Exactly. Think unobtrusive thoughts,” She knocked on the wall in front of us, and it slid open. **_[Let’s go.]_ **  
  
We walked down the hallway, Amanda looking straight ahead in concentration, and me looking around. The tour earlier in the day hadn’t taken us through here, and the dull walls and grey carpet made it easy to see why. As we passed a large, open archway, I peeked in to see a figure in some sort of silver armor sitting in front of a bank of computer screens. That must be the monitor room Amanda had mentioned.  
  
**_[T, come on! We’re almost there!]_ ** I must have been off in my own world since Amanda’s thought made me jump a bit. As I did, the armored figure turned around in his seat and started looking right at me. He slowly stood up, and was halfway to me when there was a beep from one of the computers behind him. He turned back and flicked a switch.  
  
“This is Gallant”  
  
_“Gallant, it’s Armsmaster. I have a few questions for you about the most recent PRT tour.”_  
  
I crept away as quietly as I could, rejoining Amanda as she reached an unmarked door at the end of the hall.  
  
**_[Enjoying the eye candy, were we?]_ ** She thought at me with a grin, **_[I never would’ve thought you were the type, T.]_ **  
  
**_[For one thing, there was no “eye candy”, he was in full armor. Secondly, there was something weird about him. It almost felt like he could see me.]_ **  
  
**_[Impossible, my power is still working fine. No one can see, hear, or even smell us.]_ ** Amanda pulled a small wooden handle out of her robe. A double-pointed tip popped out of it, making the whole thing look like a magic wand. Appropriate to her costume’s theme, I guess. She touched the tip of the wand to the door and started twisting it back and forth. **_[Now let me concentrate. This is a custom Tinkertech lock, hard to break.]_ **  
  
After about a minute, there was a click from inside the door, and it opened into what looked like nothing so much as a lounge, with at TV and couches on our right, and several doors off to our left.  
  
**_[Alright,]_ ** Amanda thought at me, **_[One of those should be the door to the lab. You start checking. I’ve gotta check on something else and make sure we don’t get surprised while we’re here.]_ ** **_  
_ **  
While Amanda went to one of the doors and stepped inside, a security station? Probably. I started opening other doors. The first two were nothing interesting, just simple rooms. Probably places where the Wards could sleep off a hard patrol. The third room though, opened to the biggest mess I had ever seen. Electronic junk was piled everywhere, up to the ceiling in some places. A thin path wound its way through the junk, eventually arriving at a relatively clear workbench where a short brown-haired kid was sleeping with his head buried in his arms. It was almost adorable.  
  
**_[That must be Kid Win,]_ ** I thought to Amanda as she came up behind me, **_[I can see why your friend might have a crush on him.]_ **  
  
**_[T, I am_ ** **scandalized** **_,]_ ** Amanda thought back with the distinct impression of laughing, **_[He’s got to be what, 14? You shouldn’t be looking at young children that way.]_ **  
  
**_[Oh shut up,]_ ** I sent a burst of irritation her way, **_[Let’s just leave the damn robot and be done with it. I’m going to have enough problems explaining to my dad why I’m out so late as it is.]_ **  
  
**_[It’ll be fine. He just won’t have noticed you when you came in is all.]_ ** Amanda pulled the Game Bot from somewhere and put it gently on the workbench next to Kid Win’s elbow. **_[Alright, let’s get out of here.]_ **  
  
We made our way back to the door, but stopped short when it opened from the other side and Gallant stepped in. He looked around, like he was searching for something, until his gaze settled on us.  
  
“I don’t know how you’re invisible, but I know you’re in here. I can sense you both.”  
  
I looked at Amanda in panic. **_[I thought you said no one could see us!]_ **  
  
**_[No one_ ** **can** **_see us. He can’t either. He said sense. You live here, what are his powers?]_ **  
  
“There’s no other way out of this room, Armsmaster is already on his way here.”  
  
**_[Uhh,]_ ** I racked my brain for information. They had even mentioned it on the tour earlier, why was it so hard to remember? Was it something about Tinkers? Or was it--  
  
**_[Emotions! He fires blasts of emotions and can sense how others are feeling!]_ **  
  
**_[He’s an empath? Shit, that explains it then. He’s not seeing us, he’s sensing our soul gems!]_ **  
  
“Turn off whatever it is that’s making you invisible and we can talk.”  
  
**_[Well, can you stop him?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Not now that he knows we're here. He'll have started Master/Stranger lockdown. No one in or out until it's lifted.]_ ** Amanda thought for a moment. **_[T, I need you to get us out.]_ **  
  
**_[What?]_ **  
  
**_[The only way I can get us out of here is through him. Now I don't know about you, but I don't want a charge of assaulting a Ward on my record. Teleport us out of here!]_ **  
  
I began charging my teleport when Gallant turned his head to me.  
  
“Look,” he said, “I know you want to get out of here, but that’s not going to happen. If you cooperate, things will go much easier for you. I promise.”  
  
I wasn’t having any of it, and apparently Gallant could tell. He raised his hand toward me. My chest throbbed and I threw myself to the ground just as a ball of light flew from Gallant’s hand. It grazed my arm and sent me spinning into Amanda and the both of us into a pile of junk, which collapsed on top of us.  
  
“Are you convinced now?” Gallant asked as I tried to grab Amanda to teleport away, “I’ve broken your invisibility tech, and there’s no way for you to get out.”  
  
What did he mean broke our invisibility tech? We weren’t using tech! My fingers found something wet and sticky in the mess. I looked at my hand. Blood. That was blood. It wasn’t my blood. Who else would have blood here? I looked back to the wet stickiness and saw Amanda. Unconscious and bleeding from a gash on her forehead. I looked back to Gallant. He could see us. When Amanda went out, her power did too, and now Gallant could see us.  
  
Shit.  
  
“What _are_ you?” he asked, “I hit you with a ball of cooperation, but your face says you’re panicking, and all I can sense is that you want to be gone. Your emotions aren’t working right.”  
  
Want to be gone? Yeah, I wanted to be gone. There were only a few times I wanted to be away from a place more than I did now. I scrambled backwards until I found Amanda’s hand and I grabbed it, then I let myself go, feeling nothing but _gone_ .  
  
There was a flash of blue.

 

* * *

 

In the nearly six years since her debut as a cape, Dragon had seen a lot of strange things. Men and women subverting the laws of physics, portals to an alternate world, other things, even harder to describe, or even talk about. Stranger than all those, however, was the sight she saw now. Armsmaster, stoic, unemotional Colin, playing with a Game Boy. If he had been wearing his helmet, Dragon wouldn’t have hesitated to take a picture. As it was, she thought for a full millisecond before saving the image, and swearing never to show it to anyone.  
  
Her private business done, Dragon pinged the room’s communication systems to let Colin know she was there. As always, he answered quickly.  
  
“What have you got, Dragon?”  
  
_“Oh, it can wait, I’d hate to interrupt your playtime.”_  
  
“I’m not playing with it,” he said as he put the Game Boy down on a workbench, “I’m trying to figure out how it works.”  
  
_“Usually you put the cartridge in, turn it on and play a game. But given that you’re you, I’m assuming there’s something different about this one?”_  
  
“Our Tinkertech smugglers broke into PRT HQ not three hours ago. Gallant caught them in Kid Win’s lab, but they teleported away before he could get them. He did see them though, and they left this behind in the confusion.”  
  
_“And? What do they look like?”_  
  
“Costumed. Both young. The redhead dresses like a witch, the brunette like a more modern cape, with a visor that stopped us seeing her face.”  
  
_“But we have actual footage of them now, right?”_  
  
“We do,” Armsmaster said as he stooped over a computer, “I’m sending it to you now. Gallant knocked out the redhead by accident, and when she went down, so did whatever it was that kept them invisible.”  
  
_“How did he even know they were there?”_  
  
“He said their emotions were ‘loud’, whatever that’s supposed to mean, and that they didn’t act like emotions usually do. Made it easy to find them.”  
  
_“Do we know why they were there?”_  
  
“Do we know why Tinkertech smugglers would break into a Tinker’s lab, with the Tinker asleep in it, in the middle of the night?”  
  
_“So, a kidnapping then?”_  
  
“It’s possible. More likely they were just trying to steal some tech to resell and got lucky that Kid Win was there, then bugged out when Gallant found them.”  
  
_“Hmm, looking at this footage, I’m not so sure. Looks like the Game Boy ends up on the workbench before Gallant even arrives.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “So what, they were leaving it as a gift? Or a message? Given what it can do, that seems unlikely.”  
  
_“What can it do?”_ _  
_ _  
_ Armsmaster pressed one of the buttons on the Game Boy. It stood up and did a little dance.  
  
_“That’s… not a standard feature.”_  
  
“It shouldn’t be a feature at all. I’ve put this thing through every test and scan I can think of, and everything tells me it’s just a regular Game Boy, no different from any other. No hinges, no motors, there aren’t even batteries in it.”  
  
_“And yet, it can dance. Like magic.”_  
  
“No, just some new kind of Tinker power. Or maybe a Breaker somehow. I will figure this out. And I will catch these two.”  
  
_“I know you will, Colin. Just... keep an open mind about things, okay? Sometimes you get too focused on one explanation that you ignore anything else it might be.”_  
  
“I’ll follow the evidence and the facts. These two are running around, endangering my city, and I will not allow them to do as they please in it.”  
  
There was little else to say after that, but even after Dragon ended the call, there was something about the situation that bothered her. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was, but it reminded her of some reports Director Costa-Brown had asked her to look over. She began to draft a message to Director Piggot.

 

* * *

 

It had been a week since Amanda’s fiasco of an “errand” had left her stuck in her hotel room with a head wound, and me with a lurking fear that at any moment the Protectorate would come knocking on my door. That fear wasn’t helped by my return to school, and to the Trio.  
  
There hadn’t been any incidents so far, but I could tell they were trying. Oddly enough though, every time they seemed about to start something, they’d be forced to stop for some reason. Sometimes it would be the bell ringing, or a phone call. Simple stuff, really. Once Sophia tried to trip me in gym class, and I swear her foot just passed right through me. I’m honestly not sure what happened there, but she avoided me for two days after it, so whatever it was, I was glad of it.  
  
The attempts had died down after that, which probably meant the Trio was building up to something big that they could be sure of working. Last time that had happened I…  
  
Yeah.  
  
Anyway, here it was Saturday evening again, and I was on my way to visit my new invalid friend with a basket of goodies, which is to say grief cubes, set aside from the hunts I had gone on when I felt sure enough that no one was following me, and Chinese takeout. Amanda had been giving me general magic lessons while she recovered, and had mentioned some fighting lessons later as something to look forward to.  
  
Rather than go in through the main lobby of Amanda’s hotel, I walked around back and looked for the open window on the third floor. I didn’t need it open to get in, but it made for a good marker. Making sure there was no one around to see, I focused on the window, and appeared in the room. I had expected to find Amanda there, and I did. I did not expect to find her like this though.  
  
“Are you doing a handstand?”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
“On the lamp?”  
  
“Well aren’t you the bright one?” Amanda grinned manically, “Get it? Bright? Lamp?”  
  
I just stared at her.  
  
“Everyone’s a critic,” She hopped down from the lamp and landed neatly on the bed. “So, what’d you bring me this time?”  
  
“Well let’s see,” I began unpacking the takeout bag, “We’ve got some wonton soup, sweet and sour pork, rice, and cashew chicken.”  
  
“That’ll do. Give it here.”  
  
I handed her a pair of chopsticks and a paper plate piled with food. She grabbed it and started shoveling the food into her mouth. For my part, I ate at a slower pace, leaving me time to do other important things. Like breathe.  
  
“Thanks, T,” Amanda said around a mouthful of food, “This is heaven.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it. You can answer some questions in thanks.”  
  
“Yeah, sure. What d’you wanna know?” Somehow she kept eating while she answered me.  
  
“Well you said magical girls don’t do much with capes. Why not?”  
  
“Like I said, most of us are busy dealing with magic bullshit. Wraiths and the like. Anyone can punch crime in the face, but only we can deal with that stuff. So that’s what most of us do. That said, there are a few who go public. The UN task force that stopped that Tinkertech island a while back? They’ve got at least three magical girls on their team. Maybe more by now.”  
  
“So I have options then?”  
  
“You do. But I'll tell you now that girls who do start public heroing are usually ignored when they mention magic since, obviously, magic isn't real. They also tend not to last too long.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Do you know the half-life of your average independent cape? Six months. Your normal, everyday, fresh off the boat cape has a 50-50 chance of being dead within six months of debuting.”  
  
“And what about magical girls?”  
  
Amanda looked away from me and mumbled into her plate. “Six weeks. More, a lot more, if you have friends to help keep you stable, less if you're in the public eye. Eventually you get cocky, or some punk gets lucky and shoots your gem, or you see how shit the world can be and go into gem collapse and the Law of Cycles takes you.”  
  
“So that’s why you--”  
  
“Yeah. My group from Boston sends someone out when we hear about a new contract nearby. We teach her the ropes, help her get stable, and hopefully, keep her alive.”  
  
“So public heroing leads to dead. Got it. What about the big things, like Endbringers?”  
  
“Oh, there’re girls at those. But the few times I’ve been at an Endbringer fight we’re usually too busy dealing with all the wraiths that show up, what with everyone’s emotions running as high as they are during those. I saw a Moksha during a Simurgh attack once, and frankly, I don’t want to ever see one of those again.”  
  
“A what?”  
  
“A Moksha. Two tiers above the Shugen you met on your first night out. Short version: very powerful, takes multiple girls to be able to even hope to fight it, and even then it's like fighting a hurricane. If you see one, stay away.”  
  
“So what,” I asked, “Just deal with normal wraiths and ignore all the other crap I see?”  
  
“Not at all. It’s your magic and I’m not gonna tell you how to use it. I will make sure you know the risks of different paths though. Just do the rest of us a favor will you? If you do decide to save your city by beating up everything you see,” Amanda winked at me, “Keep the whole ‘magic’ thing a secret okay?”  
  
I nodded. It was something to think about at least. More options than just beating up creepy ghost giants in the middle of the night.  
  
“Now, enough with the doom and gloom,” said Amanda, “let’s do something silly. Hand me one of those fortune cookies.”  
  
I checked the bag. “They only gave us one.”  
  
“Damn I hate when that happens. Okay you take that fortune cookie then. Don't open it yet.”  
  
“How are fortune cookies silly?”  
  
“I know a girl who writes the fortunes in some, and she told me a secret. If you put a pit of magic into the cookie before cracking it open, the fortune will come true.”  
  
“Really.”  
  
“You’re unimpressed, I can tell. But it’s true! Either that or the fortune will sound funny if you add ‘with a goat’ to the end of it. One of the two. Try it.”  
  
I held the cookie in my hands and willed some magic into it. It glowed softly and I broke it open and extracted the paper from inside.  
  
“‘Lucky color: red. A difficult conversation holds the seed to your success.’”  
  
“Your success with a goat.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s not funny. Maybe it’s your head wound making you think that was good.”  
  
“Much as I’m sure you would like to blame my comedic genius on a temporarily addled mind,” said Amanda as she lifted her bangs, “I’m healthy as the day we met.”  
  
I stared. Only a faint pink line suggested there had ever been an injury there. Apparently my confusion showed, because Amanda grinned that grin of hers that said “I understand that these events make no sense to you, and I am enjoying it immensely”. She was waiting for me to ask. I would not give her the satisfaction. Instead I cleared my face and made a sort of disinterested noise. “Magic?”  
  
She pouted and put her last piece of chicken in her mouth. “You’re no fun anymore.”  
  
“I aim to please,” I said with a grin of my own, “So if you haven’t been healing all this time then, what have you been doing?”  
  
“Following you around, mostly. Making sure you don’t get into any fights too big for you to handle on your own, keeping a general eye on your fighting strategies, that sort of thing.”  
  
“And I didn’t notice you because magic?”  
  
“Because magic.”  
  
“But I thought that things you did while you were invisible got noticed instead.”  
  
“And here you are, noticing. Magic can be great once you know how to exploit the loopholes.”  
  
“You’re making that up, aren’t you?”  
  
“Maybe,” she admitted, “But only a little bit. Still, speaking of magic, let’s see your soul gem. It looked dimmer than it really should, given the amount of magic I’ve seen you use.”  
  
“I’ve been noticing that too,” I said as I summoned my soul gem and held it up, “What do you think it is?”  
  
Amanda looked at the gem for a moment, then handed me a grief cube from the supply I had brought. I used it, and Amanda looked at me concernedly.  
  
“When was the last time you used any sort of magic?”  
  
“When I teleported up here. Before that, nothing I can think of since Thursday night when I went hunting.”  
  
“And you cleaned your gem after that?”  
  
“Yeah. Why?”  
  
“I’m gonna be honest with you here, T. What I saw you clean off just now was not a day and a half of low-intensity body maintenance. Either the drain hit you harder than I thought, you’re using magic subconsciously for some reason, or you’re in the middle of an emotional breakdown.”  
  
“I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of a breakdown.”  
  
“No, when a magical girl breaks down you know it. I don’t think that’s the problem here.”  
  
“So what should I do then?”  
  
“If it’s the drain, then you just need to keep training in healthy emotional responses, which is useful anyway, and eventually you’ll have formed enough new emotional connections that the problem will solve itself. If it’s subconscious magic use, we should find out why it’s happening and see if we can stop it. Either way, short-term solution is keep an eye on your soul gem, and make sure you have plenty of grief cubes.”  
  
“And that’s it?"  
  
“It shouldn’t be too hard to do. There are enough wraiths in this city to support more than a dozen girls who are using as much magic as you apparently are, and so far as I can tell, no girls but you to deal with them. That’s actually probably why your city sucks so much.” Amanda shook her head, “Uh, no offense.”  
  
“No, it’s true. The city sucks. At least I have something else to blame it on now.”  
  
“Anyway, you’ll be fine on the cube side of things. Now come on, it’s dark out. Let’s go hunting. I’ll teach you how to actually be good at it.”  
  
We headed up to the roof and transformed. Amanda jumped off toward the docks, she shared my opinion on enhanced agility it seemed, and I was about to follow when--

\--My chest throbbed. I twitched a bit, then felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. Time seemed to slow down and I was spinning. I saw a hole in the wall behind me, then fell to the ground as a loud cracking sound split the air. My left leg was hurting now. Why was it hurting? I could see it right there in front of me! It wasn't even attached! Why should it hurt?  
  
Another cracking sound and Amanda was in front of me looking worried. I tried to ask what was wrong, but all that came out were some gurgling noises. Amanda dropped low and started looking at the surrounding buildings. She was saying something, but I couldn't quite make it out. Then she looked straight at me and said one word that I did understand.  
  
Sniper.  
  
I’m no expert, but I was pretty sure if there was a sniper shooting at us, why was there a sniper shooting at us? If there was a sniper, we didn't want to be out in the open like this. We needed to get away.  
  
Then there was a sound like glass breaking, Amanda falling over, and a third cracking sound.  
  
We really needed to get out of here. I gathered myself, thinking nothing of the destination but that it had to be safe from all this. I let go.  
  
There was a flash of blue.

  
\--my soul gem lit up like a light bulb, bathing the entire rooftop in blue. My costume disappeared, leaving my in my regular clothes, and I stumbled onto my knees. Why did it feel good to know I still had my knees? Also, who left a puddle of vomit on the roof? I almost landed in it! I should complain.  
  
Amanda was at my side in the next moment. I almost told her about the vomit, but she seemed worried about something. Probably better to stay quiet about it for now.  
  
“S’fine,” I told her, “I’m fine. No sniper. See? I’ve still got…”  
  
And that's when I passed out.

 

* * *

 

That was… disturbing, to say the least. Coil had, of course, read the Protectorate reports on the new pair of Tinkertech smugglers in town and decided that something needed to be done. Normally he would at least try to recruit such “enterprising” young women into his greater organization, but his plans to acquire the Alcott girl were approaching a delicate stage, and even the slightest increase in Protectorate attention could prove disastrous. Thus, they had to die. Armsmaster would find the corpses, and the case would be closed leaving Coil free to do as he must.  
  
None of that was the disturbing part though. No, that started when he ordered one of his men to find and follow the pair. In the end, he was only able to find one of them, a local girl living in the north end of town who would occasionally just disappear for hours at a time. The hotel she had been seen to visit was marked for further investigation, and Coil had resolved to wait it out no more than one week, the longest his plan could afford, when the man shadowing the girl called in to say he had both of the smugglers in sight.  
  
An opportunity like this had been rare so far. Coil reflexively split.

 

On one side he ordered the girls shot.

 

On the other he ordered only observation.

  
Over the radio he heard the sounds of three shots. Three was unprofessional of his man, but even amateurs must get lucky sometimes, and then--

  
\--Coil was physically thrown backwards from the recoil as, with a flare of blue light behind his eyes, his second self slammed back into him like a truck. Coil’s man said something about a flare of light, one of the girl’s collapsing, and then both vanishing.  
  
That was the disturbing part. Coil had not deigned to close either side of his split; it had closed on its own. And Coil, not usually one prone to Thinker headaches, was feeling the consequences. The obvious answer as to what had just happened was that one or both of these girls had something, either a power or some advanced Tinkertech, that protected them against powers like his.  
  
Coil ordered his observer back to base for a debrief. Clearly a more circuitous method, while not Coil’s first choice, was needed here. He would try a few indirect methods first, then, if necessary, move to more extreme measures. He pressed a button on his desk.  
  
“I’m accelerating the schedule for the Haywire 9. Finish phase 2 testing by the end of the week.”  
  
He sat back in his chair and turned back to the running of his empire. The girls may be protected from his power, but two could play at that game. Coil was confident that whatever happened over the next week, he would come out on top.

 

* * *

 

“My knees!”  
  
I shot out of the bed and saw I was in my room, which was not the rooftop where I last remembered being. All things considered, the girl sleeping in my desk chair, Amanda, of course, was probably the cause of that. I was about to wake her up when I realised I had more pressing issues. I slipped out of bed and down the hall.  
  
I finished my business and headed back to my room. As I passed my dad’s door, he opened it and looked out.  
  
“Taylor? Is that you? I didn’t notice you come in.”  
  
“Yeah, Dad, sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”  
  
“No, It’s alright. It’s just, are you okay? You’ve been acting differently lately.”  
  
“Yeah, no, I’m fine. Just, things are a bit hectic, what with being back at school and everything.”  
  
Dad pursed his lips. “If you say so. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”  
  
“I do, yeah. Thanks Dad.”  
  
Dad retreated back into his room, and I made my way back to mine. Once I closed the door Amanda sat up.  
  
“Finished with your business then?”  
  
“Just so you know, my dad’s just down the hall and he’s probably not asleep yet.”  
  
Amanda grinned a bit. “Magic. We’re fine.”  
  
“Alright, fine then. What happened anyway? Last I remember we were on the roof, then I fell down for some reason.”  
  
“I was gonna ask you the same thing. We’re heading out to hunt, your soul gem lights up like a Christmas tree, then you collapse, mumble something about a sniper, then faint.”  
  
“I sort of remember that? No idea why it happened though.”  
  
“Well, for what it’s worth, your soul gem was almost completely exhausted after whatever the hell it was you did, so after more than a few grief cubes I hid you in the hotel room and took a look around.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“Lo and behold, evidence of a sniper. Mostly just a few unusual marks on a rooftop two blocks away with suspiciously good sightlines, but five gets you ten there was one there. I asked the bunnycat if it saw anything, but it was ‘unfortunately out of the area at the time’, so it was even less help than usual.”  
  
“So if there was a sniper, why go after us? We’re not hurting anyone.”  
  
“Probably one of the local gangs caught sight of you sometime over the past week, decided they didn’t want to take the risk of an unknown cape interfering in their business, and decided to take care of the problem.”  
  
“Any advice?”  
  
“Well, there’s two ways you can do this. The direct way, or the indirect way.”  
  
“The direct way sounds…”  
  
“Dangerous? Yeah, it is, but it’ll go over like gangbusters,” Amanda smiled in that way she did when even she knew her joke was dumb, “See, because we’ll bust up a gang?”  
  
“No, I got it. What’s the indirect method?”  
  
“We find out who has it in for you, then call the Protectorate on them.”  
  
“If things were that easy, I think the gangs would have been rounded up by now.”  
  
“You just don’t know how to ask right. Besides, they’re going to notice I took those priority alert codes _eventually_ , I may as well use them for something first.”  
  
“You have--”  
  
“I have a lot of things. Including an idea how we can solve both this and your bullying issues at the same time.”  
  
“I’m listening.”  
  
“Good, it’s a very simple plan. First step, I need you to steal a hairbrush.”

 

* * *

 

Coil had been focusing most of his efforts on the local girl, Taylor Hebert, if only because the redhead had proved frustratingly impossible to find. He started small. Split--

\--then have one of his men throw a rock at the girl. The rock missed.

  
Drop that side. That man was a professional-level baseball pitcher. The rock shouldn’t have missed.  
  
Hebert was walking past a construction site. Split--

\--and have a man cause a small accident. Heavy pipes fell from a tenth-floor window. A flash of blue.

Coil was nursing a headache.  
  
The next day Hebert and the redhead were on their way somewhere, Coil didn’t care where. Split--

\--and a van tumbled out of control straight at them. The girls were four blocks down the road when the paramedics arrived. No blue light this time, but better safe than sorry.

  
Hebert’s power obviously responded to even small threats, but how would it react to two at once?  
  
It was late at night and Hebert was alone near the docks. Split--

 

\--Coil ordered his man to mug her.

\--Coil ordered his man to use the silenced pistol he carried.

 

The man approached Hebert with a knife and demanded money. She looked at him as if he had claimed he were Queen of England.

The man took aim as Hebert looked up to a nearby rooftop.

 

He stabbed. There was a flash of blue.

 

The shots missed and Hebert vanished in a flash of blue. Security footage would later show she was on the roof she had been looking at. Coil had a headache.  
  
This wasn’t working. Whatever was protecting Hebert was capable of countering him regardless of if he split or not. The Haywire device would be ready by Monday. Once it was Coil would be ready to use a more singular approach. Whatever her power was, he wanted it under his control, or gone. Either way, he would be prepared.

 

* * *

 

Well, I can’t say Amanda was wrong; it was a simple plan. Dangerous? Yes. Stupid? Unbelievably so. But still, simple. Besides, I couldn’t think of anything else that would deal with "The Unpleasantnesses”, as Amanda had begun insisting that we call the Trio, and even if the last half, which is to say the stupidly dangerous half, didn’t work I’d still get them back in a little way. Maybe Amanda was rubbing off on me, but I thought that sounded like a good idea.  
  
So, here I was in the bathroom, waiting to be ambushed. For the past few days, in addition to Amanda's regular magic and fighting training, I’d been practicing what Amanda had called “being noticeable”, which basically meant acting more like her than me. Ironic that between the two of us, the more noticeable one was the one who could turn invisible. Practice on my part, I suppose.  
  
I could tell their plans were kicking into overdrive when I saw Sophia trying to discreetly follow me during lunch. To her credit, the main reason I noticed her was the tugging sensation from my soul gem whenever she looked at me. I think it was trying to get me to leave and it took more willpower than I cared to think about not to let it, especially given what had been happening the last few days.  
  
I decided that now was as good a time as any and, instead of going to the cafeteria to eat, like I had been as part of my “noticeability campaign”, I went to the third-floor girls’ bathroom and ducked into one of the three stalls, pulled my feet up above the bottom of the wall, and waited. I didn’t have to wait long before I heard them outside. Amanda had also been coaching me on how to make use of the enhanced senses I apparently had, and I focused my hearing on the far side of the door.  
  
“You sure she’s in there?” Sounded like Emma  
  
“Of course I’m sure,” That would be Sophia, “I watched her go in and haven’t seen her since. There’s only one door.”  
  
“Okay, good. She’s been getting uppity lately, forgetting her place. Now where’s--”  
  
“Hey, I got them, here.” The sound of jogging feet meant Madison for the trifecta.  
  
“Heh, These’ll do fine. Make sure to shake ‘em up before we go in. You know which stall she’s in?”  
  
“Probably the last one,” Sophia, “Getting as far away from the door as she can to hide.”  
  
“Alright, we’ve only got a few minutes until the bell. Let’s get this done.”  
  
The bathroom door opened quietly and I heard three sets of footsteps walk toward the stalls. Some rustling and thumps, probably the girls putting down their bags so they could move easier, then some muted giggling and three soft pops and spraying.  
  
Okay, enough was enough. I stood up and walked out of my stall, the second one, incidentally, just as a puddle of some sort of purple liquid, probably soda, started to flow into it. I looked at the girls, Emma leaning against the stall door to keep anyone inside trapped, Madison and Sophia aiming soda cans inside from over the top, and honestly? The looks on their faces made me wish I had a camera. Amanda was right. Small victories were great. Still, I wasn’t done yet. I looked at Sophia, wearing an expression I had last used when Amanda had told a particularly terrible “joke”.  
  
“Well, it’s your soda I suppose.”  
  
Sophia’s face went hard and she turned to Emma, who blanched.  
  
“Hey,” I said, drawing their attention back to me, “Not to distract from whatever it is you’re doing, but could I borrow one of your hairbrushes? I forgot mine today.” Before any of them could answer I grabbed one of the three bags by the sinks. Judging by her reaction it must have been Emma’s. Ignoring her protest and letting my soul gem casually slide me out of the way of her lunge, I started digging through the bag. It took a few seconds to find a hairbrush in all the junk, but eventually I found one. I pulled it out and put the bag back with the others just as Emma came rushing at me again. I felt my soul gem pull me aside, and she slipped in the expanding puddle of soda on the floor. Just as Sophia and Madison seemed about to step in to try and stop me, the bell rang. I pushed the bathroom door open and turned back to the Unpleasantnesses. One of them picking herself up off the floor and covered with soda, the other two standing there as if they weren’t quite sure what was going on.  
  
“Hey thanks,” I said, waving the hairbrush at Emma, "I’ll be sure to get this back to you.” The door closed, and before anyone could follow me into the hallway, I teleported myself to the roof, where I waited a few minutes for my knees to stop shaking. All that was quite possibly the stupidest thing I’d done in a month increasingly filled with doing stupid things.  
  
Figuring that there was no point in staying at school for the rest of the day and leaving myself open to whatever reprisal came from all this, which, knowing Sophia, would likely be pretty violent, I jumped to the ground and made my way to the Boardwalk, where Amanda and I had agreed to meet once I had the hairbrush. It was still cold out, and I had left my jacket at school, but ever since I became a magical girl I didn't really get too hot or cold. When I asked Amanda about it she just said “magic”, which was getting very tiring as an answer, no matter how accurate it might be.  
  
_[Greetings, Ms. Hebert, How are you today?]_  
  
I jumped, I hadn’t seen the bunnycat show up. Maybe he could teleport too.  
  
“Just fine, Cubes, how about you?”  
  
_[I am well, as ever.]_  
  
I threw him the few dirtied grief cubes I had, and realised I only had about six or so fresh ones left. I made a note to go wraith hunting this evening. “Good to hear. Any particular reason for this visit, or are you just here to save the universe?”  
  
_[You jest, but that is exactly what processing used grief cubes does.]_ He jumped to his preferred spot on my shoulder. _[I have explained this to you before.]_  
  
“Wow, Amanda was right, you really don’t know what to do with jokes. Admittedly, her idea of a joke isn’t that great but still…”  
  
_[As you have implied, I am unaware of the quality of any of Ms. O'Neill’s humor. That aside, I am here now to ask after you. It is my understanding that you have been having unexplained magical outbursts recently?]_  
  
After whatever had happened on the hotel roof there had been a few times where, for no reason I could figure out, my soul gem would light up, then dim like I’d used enough magic to teleport across town. If there weren’t as many wraiths around as there were, I’d’ve been more worried. As it was though, I had to go hunting every second night, instead of the once or twice a week Amanda said was the usual minimum.  
  
“A few, yeah,” I told him, “Amanda and I are working on it.”  
  
**_[Indeed we are,]_** Amanda’s voice rang out in my head. She must have been close by, **_[And on that note, I have some good news and some bad news.]_**  
  
**_[What’s the bad news?]_**  
  
**_[The bad news is that it wasn’t the Empire Eighty-Eight who sent the sniper. They had the hardware to do it, but none of the heavy stuff’s been touched for at least a month now.]_**  
  
**_[Okay, and the good news?]_**  
  
**_[They_** **had** ** _the hardware to send snipers out. Past tense. Next time they try to field anything more dangerous than a pointed stick they’ll find it all not working for some reason. As if by magic. Granny would’ve been proud.]_**  
  
**_[Truly, you art a noble soul, Amanda O'Neill. This world does not deserve you.]_**  
  
**_[Damn straight it doesn’t. That’s why you’re buying lunch.]_**  
  
I was about to send a retort, having a friend to banter with again was _great_ , when my soul gem started throbbing again. That wasn’t good.  
  
Some of that must have made it through to Amanda, because I got a burst of worry from her. **_[What is it?]_**  
  
**_[I think I’m being followed. Do either of you see anything unusual?]_**  
  
_[There is a large vehicle approximately three hundred feet back that appears to be following you.]_  
  
**_[I’ve got it too. White electrician’s van, moving slowly and yet doesn’t look lost. Get out of there, T. I’ll follow it back and we can find out who it’s working for.]_**  
  
I thought for a moment, then decided that, screw it, acting like Amanda, or at least like not-Taylor, had worked out for me so far, and at least now stealing Emma’s hairbrush won’t have been the stupidest thing I’d done today.  
  
**_[Better idea. I go ask them to take me to their boss. That way we don’t have to sneak in to plant the brush. Once I’ve done that, you call the Protectorate, I teleport out, and we enjoy the show from a distance.]_**  
  
**_[Bad idea. We don’t know who these people are, or who they work for. They could be trying to kill you for all we know. And without me there with you to keep us unnoticed, you’d be putting yourself in too much danger.]_**  
  
**_[If they were trying to kill me, they’ve had… Cubes how long has that van been following us?]_**  
  
_[Three minutes and thirty-eight seconds.]_  
  
**_[They’ve had four minutes to do it. We were on that rooftop for less than twenty seconds before I collapsed, so these guys are here to watch, not to kill. Besides, even if things get too dangerous, I can just leave whenever I want to, right?]_** ** _  
_****_  
_****_[At least wait a bit. I can be with you in two minutes.]_** ** _  
_****_  
_****_[No, you need to stay outside the van, let the Protectorate know where to go.]_** ** _  
_****_  
_****_[Fine,]_** Amanda sounded displeased at the entire plan, but how else was a person supposed to sound at the prospect of someone asking to be taken to a ganglord’s hideout? **_[But I still think this is a bad idea.]_**  
  
**_[It’ll be fine. This way we’ll be done with this whole mess by tonight._** **_Besides, I’ve got Cubes with me. What could go wrong?]_** ** _  
_****_  
_****_[See, now you’re just trying to make me mad, and it’s not gonna work. And you're still paying for lunch.]_**  
  
I laughed as I turned around and walked toward the van. No one else was around, so I figured “why not?” and transformed into my costume. The van skidded to a halt. I walked up to it and knocked on the side door. I can’t say that I was surprised to see two guns pointing at me from inside when it opened.  
  
“Hi there!” I said to the guns, “I can’t believe I‘m actually saying this, but could you take me to your leader?”

 

* * *

 

It had been almost two weeks now, and Armsmaster was no closer to tracking down the two Tinkertech smugglers than he was before the break-in. The Game Boy that had been left in Kid Win’s lab was restrained under a bulletproof glass case, put there after its third attempt to leave. The first had been unexpected, coming in the middle of one of Armsmaster’s power naps, and was foiled when the lab door wouldn’t open. The second was planned, with a tracker Armsmaster hoped would lead back to the smugglers, only to be frustrated when the Game Boy just went back to Kid Win’s lab and climbed onto his desk.  
  
The third attempt was another try at getting it to lead back to the smugglers, letting the Game Boy out seven miles from the PRT building, only to abort the attempt when it became clear it was heading back to Kid Win’s lab again. After that it was determined that tracking the smugglers that way wouldn’t work, and the Game Boy was put under glass in Armsmaster’s lab, where it now sat looking far sadder than should be possible for a piece of consumer electronics to look.  
  
Now Armsmaster was looking over a series of reports Dragon had sent him regarding the trackable movements of the smugglers. They were very short reports. Whoever these girls were, they were either very good at hiding their tracks, or whatever Stranger powers they had access to were disturbingly powerful. The two most promising locations for where the smugglers were hiding, a downtown hotel and “the north end of the city”, had ended up not panning out, and being far to vague, respectively. Armsmaster had ordered an increase in patrols in those areas anyway, just in case.  
  
Halfway through a report on how the number of potential locations could be narrowed down to something more manageable, there was a knock at his door. The secure door slid open and Director Piggot stepped through, looking just as fit as she had when she retired from field work. The number of people who could get into Armsmaster’s lab without him opening the door for them was very small. Mostly it was just a few high-ranking Protectorate members, but regulations dictated Director Piggot have access too. Armsmaster had also put Dragon on the list, in case she ever overcame her agoraphobia enough to leave her house.  
  
Once Director Piggot was through, the door slid shut behind her. Armsmaster put the report down and looked at her expectantly.  
  
“Armsmaster, I’m going to be blunt. What’s your progress on these smugglers you’ve been tracking?”  
  
“Unfortunately very little; Dragon and I have had very little luck in determining their location beyond the vaguest of areas, and they’ve made no overt moves since the break-in.”  
  
“Are they even still in the city?”  
  
“There are enough anomalous results in Dragon’s analysis of surveillance footage that we believe they are, yes. Our current working theory is that after they were caught in the break-in they’re trying to lay low, maybe sell among the local gangs.”  
  
Piggot considered this for a moment. “There’s a problem with that theory though. All the reports suggest the gangs, the Empire especially, are actually fielding _less_ hardware, normal weapons and Tinkertech both. That doesn’t fit with new suppliers arriving in town.”  
  
“I’ve thought of that, and if our smugglers are destroying weapon caches, that would drive up demand for what they’re selling.”  
  
“I see, and your current plan of action?”  
  
“Maintain what surveillance we can for now. If they make a move or we get a lead on something they’re planning, we send a team to intercept and capture.”  
  
“A sound enough plan. But I’ve spoken with Dragon about this, and she agrees that there are enough unusual events surrounding these girls that I’m classifying them as Case 32s.”  
  
“I’m unfamiliar with that designation,” Armsmaster said, “what does it mean?”  
  
“It’s not a common designation, and there aren’t many files detailing the specifics, but the short version is that they aren’t Tinkertech smugglers. Tell both your team and the Wards that they are to make no efforts to detain or otherwise hinder these girls, and that absolutely no attempt at contact is to be made unless they initiate it. Alexandria will be here soon to explain everything.”  
  
There are times when two unrelated events happen in such a way that suggests significance, or a causal link between them. Mostly these times are dismissed as coincidence. Sometimes they even are. Regardless, it was that moment, with Armsmaster’s reply still unspoken, that the priority alert alarm, usually reserved for threats just below Endbringer in nature, went off. The lights turned red throughout the entire base, an automated call went out to all the neighboring Protectorate teams, and a message displayed itself on every computer in sight. It was a map reference followed by a single word.  
  
“Help”

 

* * *

 

“Take me to your leader,” I had said. That’ll teach me to be smart with mooks. They’d bundled me into the van, tied my hands, and put a bag over my head. Not that any of that mattered, since I could just teleport out whenever I wanted, and Cubes was with me to tell me about anything I couldn’t see. I wasn’t honestly sure if he would, but it was better than nothing at least.  
  
We’d driven around for at least an hour like that before the van finally stopped. I heard the door open, and was lifted out and put on the ground. Then the van drove away, leaving me god knows where with a bag on my head.  
  
**_[Cubes, you still with me?]_ **  
  
_[I am, Ms. Hebert.]_  
  
**_[Great. Where are we?]_ **  
  
_[We appear to be in a basement parking garage in an unfinished building in the downtown area.]_  
  
**_[Downtown? I thought that was Empire Territory. Amanda said it wasn’t them.]_ **  
  
_[I am unfamiliar with the demographics of your city’s criminal population so I could not provide any useful information on that front.]_ _  
_ _  
_ **_[Fine. Can you get this bag off my head so I can take a look around at least?]_ ** _  
_ _  
_ _[I could, but it would doubtless appear odd to the young woman watching you.]_ _  
_ _  
_ **_[Wait, there’s someone else here?]_ ** I turned my head hoping to find them, but with the bag still on it did no good. **_[Why didn’t you tell me?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** _[You did not ask.]_ _  
_ _  
_ **_[Cubes?]_ **  
  
_[Yes, Ms. Hebert?]_ _  
_ _  
_ **_[I hate you.]_ **  
  
Fine. That answered whether the bunnycat would be useful. Figuring it couldn’t be worse than the way things were now, I called out to whoever it was watching me.  
  
“Is the bag really necessary at this point?”  
  
“Not really,” came the reply, definitely a girl’s voice, probably not too much older than me. How many teenage girl supervillains were there in town? Couldn’t be that many. “I was just waiting to see what you’d do next. You are not what I expected. Not with that costume at least. It takes guts to show that much leg. I couldn’t do it.”  
  
There was the sound of someone walking toward me, then the bag was pulled from my head. Blinking against the sudden brightness, I took a look at the girl. Purple bodysuit with black stripes intersecting at odd angles, a domino mask, blonde hair, and a grin that said she knew entirely too much and that she knew she knew it. I immediately didn’t like her. She probably knew that too.  
  
“Y’know,” I said, trying to sound as unterrified as possible, “I’ve been meaning to ask someone, but how much good does one of those masks really do in concealing your identity? I mean, it covers basically nothing. Can’t be that useful.”  
  
“You’d be surprised, actually. And it’s not just the mask, but how I present myself while wearing it. Body language is everything.”  
  
“You say to the girl tied up at your mercy. I assume you’re the one trying to kill me then?”  
  
“No, I just do some contract work for him. I’m trying to figure out the best way to get you to tell him what he wants to know. Usually he’d do that himself, but he's being cautious with you for some reason. Besides, we both know you could break out of those ropes any time you want. You’re here only because you want to be.”  
  
“And how would you know that?”  
  
“I know things. It’s my magic power. Now stand up. I have to see if you’ve got anything dangerous on you before I take you to see the boss.”  
  
I stood up. It was a bit difficult, what with my hands still tied, but I managed it. The girl walked up to me and started patting me down. Finding nothing, she started digging through my backpack, which the mooks had apparently left next to me when they dumped me on the ground.  
  
“Magic power?” I asked as the girl flipped through my math textbook. **_[I thought I was the only one in town.]_ **  
  
The girl put the book down and looked at me. “You believed it?” She laughed, “Amazing! That’s going on the list. Right next to ‘I’m psychic’.” She dumped the rest of my books on the ground and started pulling other things from my bag. “But you should know better than to ask a girl about her powers. It’s like, rule three or something. Hello, what’s this?”  
  
She had pulled Emma’s hairbrush out and was turning it over in her hands. She looked at me, then grinned.  
  
“Aren’t you the clever one then? Stealing this and walking straight into the lair of an unknown cape, one who’s trying to kill you no less, just to frame a schoolyard bully? Admittedly, barring special circumstances none of the charges will stick, but it’ll be enough to start an investigation and turn up what they did to you. Still, there’s escalation, then there’s this. I think I like you. What’s your name? I’m Tattletale.”  
  
“How did--”  
  
“I told you, I know things. Like that you don’t actually have a cape name. My bad, we’ll save that for later. Come on. Let’s take you to the boss.” She gave me a little push and I stumbled forward.  
  
“Can I have the hairbrush back?”  
  
“I think I’ll keep it for now,” She steered me toward a small door in the shadows of the garage that I hadn’t seen before, “Props on your plan and everything, but overall it needs work. You don’t even know where the crew barracks are, let alone the best place to put this thing for maximum framing potential.”  
  
We walked through the door and into a long, featureless hallway. I didn’t see Cubes anywhere, which meant he had probably left after he revealed how useless he would be.  
  
“But you do?”  
  
“By now we’ve thoroughly established that yes, I know things. Besides which, depending on how all this goes, you might not even need it.”  
  
We reached a sharp bend in the hall and Tattletale stopped us to knock on a section of wall. She paused, then knocked two more times. Some sort of secret knock? Apparently so, since the wall slid open into a small, dimly-lit room. Tattletale turned to me.  
  
“You wait here. I’m going to give my report to the boss, then he’s going to talk with you. Don’t touch anything or try to leave. Everything here would probably kill you if you do the wrong thing.”  
  
She walked out the other side of the room, leaving me alone. I tried calling out to Amanda to see how her end of the plan was going, but no luck, she must have been too far away. With nothing else to do, I started thinking about what Tattletale had said about escalation. True, this was upping the stakes far more than any of my other attempts to get someone to notice the Unpleasantnesses’ actions, but those small tries had resulted in nothing from the school, and an increase in the bullying. Like they were taunting me about my lack of power. If I started a PRT investigation on them, what would they do to retaliate?  
  
My thoughts were interrupted by Tattletale coming back into the room, looking shaken. She walked past me and solidly closed the door behind her as she left. The door she came through, though, that was still open. Well, may as well get this over with then. I walked through the open door.  
  
And found myself in the back of a comfortable office. The large desk seemed functional, if bare, and I could see a bunch of screens showing what were presumably security feeds from different places.  
  
“Uh, hello?” I said to the large black chair.  
  
The chair turned around. Sitting in it was a man in a bodysuit so black it was almost indistinguishable from the chair itself. Only the white shape of a snake winding its way around his costume from his feet to his head showed me where he stopped and the chair began. In his lap was a small black plastic box with a single button, which the man pressed. The button began to glow. My soul gem started throbbing, pulling to get me away. I ignored it.  
  
“Ah, good afternoon,” the man said, “Ms…. Hebert was it? I apologise for the Haywire device, but I would like our conversation to be without any unexpected surprises. Please, sit.” He gestured to a chair on the other side of the desk. With nothing else to do, I sat down.  
  
“So,” I said, “You obviously know me, probably from having your goons follow me, but who are you?”  
  
“Ah, of course, introductions are in order. You may call me Coil."  
  
“Never heard of you.”  
  
“No, I tend to keep my operations private. Nothing ruins a plan like the over-enthusiastic attentions of heroes. Which is why you are here now. You and your colleague have been running around the city for nearly a month now, and have made no overt moves to establish any sort of dominance beyond an ill-fated attempt to abduct Kid Win. Those are not the actions of the Tinkertech smugglers our dear Armsmaster claims you are. But they are leading to an increased level of Protectorate scrutiny, and you can understand why I don’t want that.”  
  
“Sure, can’t do crimes if the law is looking for stuff. So why try to kill me then? Wouldn’t that just make the Protectorate more suspicious? 'Mystery cape found dead' and all that?”  
  
“Indeed it would, if Armsmaster had any ambition beyond clearing out what he thinks of as the new menace to his city. No, your corpse, disposed of in a convenient location, would do nothing but convince him that you were killed by some gang or organization for overstepping your bounds. Which, admittedly would have been the case.”  
  
“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here. Is this where it turns out you had trouble killing me?”  
  
“Indeed. You have shown yourself to be unusually powerful, Ms. Hebert. Powerful enough to boldly walk into an unknown threat armed with nothing but a hairbrush. I wish to understand that power and ensure it does not become a threat to my plans.”  
  
“So, what, I tell you all my secrets, then you kill me?”  
  
“It need not be so adversarial. Tattletale leads a small group, the Undersiders, which has been looking for another member. The pay is quite generous, and the job would not require you to do anything you have not already shown yourself willing to do.  
  
“And if I say no to your oh-so-generous blackmail?”  
  
“Then I kill you here and now.”  
  
“What’s to stop it from turning out like the last time you tried that?”  
  
Coil took the box from his lap and put it beside him on the desk. “This. The late Professor Haywire created it when the interference from his other selves grew too cumbersome. It succeeded in shutting them out, but at a cost. He went mad from some sort of reverse tinker fugue shortly afterwards and died in the initial contact with Earth Aleph. I had originally planned to use it to shield myself from certain clairvoyants and Thinkers, but in testing it was discovered that so long as this device is on, everyone in its range is trapped in a small bubble universe, bereft of their powers, and is no different from any other human being. You cannot use your power to escape this, Ms. Hebert. I suggest you take my offer.”  
  
“You expect me to believe something exists that can block powers? Bullshit. If the technology existed then the Protectorate would be using it in all their prisons. They’d build bombs out of them and use them on Endbringers. There is no way that box does what you’re saying it does.”  
  
“Yes, unfortunately Haywire only made the one before he died, and this one was thought lost in the same explosion that killed him. Fortunately, it was not. Now, enough distractions. I have made my offer, will you take it?”  
  
There was something off about this whole situation. I looked down to my soul gem. It was still fairly bright, but dimmer than it should have been, considering I cleaned it just before getting in the van. I don’t think the box was affecting me, at least not the way Coil was expecting it to, but there was definitely something going on. I needed to get out. I began to draw in power. It was a bit different than usual, but I could feel the power gathering just outside me. The throbbing from my soul gem got stronger and the box on the desk began to spark.  
  
“I’m sorry, Mr. Coil,” the box sparked again, but the light on top remained lit. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”  
  
Coil looked to the box, now on fire, but still active, then back to me. Then he pulled a gun from his desk and pointed it at my forehead.  
  
Time seemed to slow down as three things happened in that exact moment. First the sound of an explosion as Coil’s box finally gave up the ghost. Secondly, a series of smaller explosions as Coil pulled the trigger. Several bullets raced from the gun and I traced the path they would take. The exploding box had pushed Coil’s aim off just a bit, and now what would have been clean headshots were heading straight for my my chest, and my soul gem.  
  
That’s when the third thing happened. All the power I’d been gathering rushed into me all at once. My soul gem flared so bright it was hardly blue anymore. All I could think was that I had to be away from Coil. I felt the first bullet hit, my left side, just above the heart. The second hit just left of center. I couldn’t hold all this power. The third bullet raced straight for the crystallization of everything that was me, the gem that if broken meant I would die. I let the power go.  
  
Everything vanished as the world turned white.

 

_Everyone does magic all the time in different ways. “life” plus “significance” = magic. - Grant Morrison_


	4. Interlude: Now and Then

**31 January, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America**   
  
Coil blinked spots from his eyes. That was one problem dealt with. The loss of the Haywire device was a blow, but he would recover. Coil looked at the body left on the floor of his office. Curious that her costume had disappeared when she had died, replaced by entirety normal clothes. And unfortunate that he hadn’t been able to recruit her. Not that he had expected to be able to, but not taking opportunities when they presented themselves wasn’t how he got where he was now. Still, this needed dealing with. Coil pressed a button next to the computer on his otherwise clear desk and a small tone sounded.   
  
“Send a cleanup team to my office. And find a good place to leave the body. ABB, I think. Lung might accidentally kill some of the Protectorate when they start investigating.”   
  
Coil released the button without waiting for a response and turned back to his work, splitting and combining as needed, ensuring everything in his empire worked its best for him. He barely even noticed when the four-man cleanup crew came in to do their work, and he noticed even less when the three of them left again, one of them carrying the shoulders of the girl’s remains, one at the feet, and the third carrying a bag with the shattered remains of the Haywire device. Not even a word spoken. Just the way he liked it.   
  
Continuing his work, Coil took a sip from the coffee on his desk. It had gone cold, and it had an unfamiliar aftertaste to it. He made a note to have the man who made it reassigned somewhere dangerous. Then it struck him.   
  
He hadn’t had any coffee five minutes ago.   
  
Was it left over from one of the cleanup crew? No, none of the three men who came in had been carrying a cup.   
  
Wait…   
  
There was something important here. But for the life of him, Coil couldn’t put a finger on what it was. There was coffee, but no one had left it. What else could there be? Something here wasn’t right. Coil made to split defensively.   
  
Nothing happened.   
  
He tried again, letting his mind take two different tracks into the future, just as he’d done countless times before.   
  
Nothing happened.   
  
Coil reached into one of his desk drawers and pulled out the pistol he had recently shot the girl with. Holding it at the ready, he pressed the button on his desk again.   
  
“Alert security and send a team to my office for a full sweep. There’s an intruder in the base.”   
  
“Yeah, that’s not gonna work.”   
  
Coil released the button and looked around for the source of the voice. His office was large, but not so large that someone could hide in it. In fact, the room had been designed to prevent that very thing. Still, best to project confidence.   
  
“And why is that?”   
  
“Oh, I cut the circuit just after I came in.” The voice was definitely coming from inside the room, but Coil couldn’t quite tell where. “Right before I emptied out that gun you’re holding, actually.”   
  
Coil checked, and sure enough, the gun had been emptied, no magazine, nothing in the chamber. Why hadn’t he noticed how much lighter it had become? Something was at play here, and Coil did not like being part of someone else’s schemes. He put the gun on the desk and addressed the room.   
  
“Very well, you appear to have me at a disadvantage. What do you want?”   
  
Coil turned and saw a girl, dressed in the uniform of his guards, sitting on his desk. She smiled at him, and there was something familiar about her.   
  
“Oh, just a quick conversation, that’s all,” the girl said cheerily, “It’s so rare that I get to talk with a real live supervillain like you, Tom. How could I pass this up?”   
  
“Again, you have me at a disadvantage, Ms….?”   
  
“Oh, that. My name is mine, and you can’t have it. If you have to call me something, call me Phantom. I’ve been running with Taylor recently, showing her the ropes and all that.”   
  
“Ah, Accord has mentioned you in the past. Is that how you know who I am?”   
  
“No, he doesn’t know who you really are, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t actually care. Let’s just say that very few things can stay secret when one knows a clairvoyant. Well, a clairvoyant who isn’t twelve and they don’t plan to kidnap at least.”   
  
“I’m certain I would have heard of such a powerful individual.”   
  
“Probably, if she were one of yours. But me and mine usually keep to ourselves.”   
  
“Except when breaking into Accord’s vault.”   
  
“Yeah, but that’s what he gets for sending his goons to my apartment. Anyway, let’s swing this conversation back to why I’m here. Like I said, I’ve been running with Taylor. Past tense. I came in here all ready for a daring and dramatic rescue, and instead I find her dead on the floor.” The cheery lilt left the girl’s voice, replaced by a hard edge. “You tell me why you think I’m here.”   
  
Coil, probably wisely, said nothing.   
  
“I’ll make it simple for you then,” said the girl, as she jumped off the desk and started pacing, “That coffee was poisoned. Nothing too serious, just something a friend of mine whipped up for me. Unless you’re allergic to mushrooms all it really does is suppress your powers. But you do have some options. Option one is you leave this city now, and never come back. Live as legally as you can. All without your powers.”   
  
“And what is option two?”   
  
“Option two is you surrender yourself, your organization, and all your resources to the Protectorate. They have the antidote for the poison, and you’ll help them fight monsters in whatever ways you can, eagerly and for the good of all.”   
  
“If you know as much as you claim, then surely you know the Protectorate isn’t all it appears.”   
  
“No, you’re right, but they're a damn sight better than you. Besides, my normal offer would be 'die now’ or ‘die later after extreme public embarrassment, alone and unloved by all’, but frankly Taylor wouldn’t’ve liked that, and I am doing this for her after all.” The girl stopped pacing and turned to Coil. “I do see your point though, so let’s throw in a condition. If I find out, and believe you me, I will find out, that you’re doing anything that looks even remotely shady, you die. Alone and unloved, et cetera.”   
  
“Quite the offer,” said Coil, reaching under his desk, "But I think I will decline either option.” He found the gun hidden there and pointed it at the girl. “Accord has quite the bounty on you, you know. Enough that I should be able to get my powers back, no matter what you’ve done to them.”   
  
The girl looked at the gun Coil held and sighed.   
  
“Really? That’s your plan? Another gun?” The girl rubbed her temples. “Fine, if that’s how you want to play this, I’ll tell you a secret. I’ll tell you how I’m able to break into basically wherever I want without anyone stopping me.”   
  
“I assume it’s your power; passing unseen.”   
  
“You’re close, but that’s not quite right. You see, a while back I wished really hard that someone would notice me instead of something I’d done, and that wish came true. After that I found that I could shift anyone’s attention around. From me to whatever I did, for example. The possibilities, as you can imagine, were endless.”   
  
“And that’s the big secret that let you into my base? Your trigger event? Consider me unimpressed.”   
  
“No, Tom, not a trigger. I just said it was a wish. A wish that lets me shift attention around. I can shift your attention from me to how disgusting that coffee was, but I can also shift your attention from your office to me. I can force you to pay attention to what I’m saying right now, and completely ignore what it is I’m doing.”   
  
“And what would that be? Monologing? I’ve heard better.”   
  
“No, Tom,” The girl smiled, then faded from view, “I’m stalling.”   
  
As the girl disappeared, Coil became aware of the sounds around him. The blazing alarms and the distinctive zap of Tinkertech rifles. He looked to his monitors and saw hordes of PRT troopers bearing down on his men. He saw the Protectorate in all their force, led by Alexandria herself, with several other capes he _knew_ weren't from Brockton Bay. Had they called a priority alert? Why?   
  
This was all too much. What justified this show of force? How had they even found him? He had systems constantly monitoring Protectorate servers for information on their investigations into him, and none of them had reported anything for months.   
  
Never mind why. Coil would escape. He ran to the secret door at the back of his office, the one he’d had Tattletale bring Hebert through. He hammered the button to open it.   
  
Nothing happened.   
  
He reached for the manual override, only to find the lever had been broken off. He was trapped. He had been outplayed, deprived of his powers, and given up as a public sacrifice. And there was nothing he could do about it. As things stood, the best he could hope for was a Protectorate prison, trotted out for Endbringer battles or major decisions. He would be alive, but would be under such scrutiny, Protectorate and… otherwise apparently, that he would never achieve any of his own ambitions.   
  
Coil’s attention was drawn to the gun he still held in his hand. He checked it and found that even though, like the other gun, its magazine had been removed, this time there was still a bullet in the chamber. He laughed. Alone and unloved indeed.   
  
When Alexandria burst through the door three minutes later, the first thing she noticed was a young girl in a robe and pointed hat sitting on a massive desk, watching the various screens with a hard look on her face.   
  
“I know you,” Alexandria said to the girl, “You’re one of the girls Armsmaster's been tracking. Why are you here?”   
  
“Coil hurt a friend of mine.” the girl gestured behind her to the rear of the room. There was a red stain on the wall and a pile of… something on the floor. “I hurt him back. Thanks for the help, by the way.”   
  
“You’re the one who sent the priority alert? How did you even get those codes?”   
  
“Magic.” The girl leapt off the desk and started walking to the door, ignoring the fact that Alexandria was still standing in it. “Now I’m exhausted, so I need you to do a couple more things for me, and with luck you’ll never see me again.”   
  
“Wait right there,” Alexandria said to a suddenly-empty room. She turned around to see the girl walking away. Strange, Alexandria hadn’t even noticed the girl pass her. “You’re one of the few Case 32s we’ve had the chance to talk to in more than a decade. I’ve got some questions for you, and you’re not leaving until you answer them.”   
  
The girl didn’t seem to care. She just kept walking. Alexandria flew in front of her to try to block her path. Instead of stopping, the girl dodged around Alexandria. “Firstly,” the girl said, “somewhere in this base you’ll find the body of a young girl. Civilian clothes, Three gunshot wounds to the chest. Armsmaster has a picture to compare if you need it. Make sure she gets a burial. A good one.” Alexandria was flying to keep up again. How was this girl so _fast_ ?   
  
“Secondly,” the girl continued, “Look into the activities of Sophia Hess and her friends. Make sure they’re punished for what they’ve done. If you don’t, I will.” The edge in her voice that left Alexandria in little doubt as to what would happen if things came to that.   
  
“Who is this girl? What was she doing in a supervillain’s lair?”   
  
“She was a girl in a bad place who got in over her head. We all were, once. The lucky ones survive.”   
  
“And who are you?”   
  
“One of the lucky ones. Sometimes I’m even lucky enough to forget that. Now leave me alone. I’ve still got one thing left to do before I’m done with this mess.”   
  
“And what would that be?”   
  
“I have to tell her dad, and I hate meeting the parents.”

 

* * *

 

 **7 January, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire, United States of America** ****  
****  
There was just enough light to see. That was the worst part. It wasn't the stench, it wasn't the feeling of the used tampons and pads going up past my knees, it wasn't even the small space of the locker itself, keeping me from moving. No, it was the light. It was the four small bars of light coming through the door, giving me just enough to know where I was, what I was standing in, and that no one was coming to rescue me. There was no way out.  
  
I tried to shut it all out. I closed my eyes, I covered my ears, I tried to ignore where I was. In my mind I screamed, reaching out for anyone, anything to help me. For a moment I saw a million pinpricks of light, each one buzzing with its own actions. As I reached out to touch them, they vanished. In their place was a voice. Childlike, but with a sense of purpose behind it.   
  
_[That was close. I almost missed you Ms. Hebert.]_   
  
"M-Missed me?" I stammered, "What do you mean? Who are you? Can you get me out of here?"   
  
_[It would be more accurate to say that I can help you get yourself out, but you will need to do something first.]_   
  
"What do I need to do? Tell me! I'll do anything!"   
  
_[It is simple, really. Just make a contract with me and become a magical girl!]_   
  
"A contract? Magic? What are you talking about? Just get me out of here!"   
  
_[Very well, I suppose we can go over the specifics later. All you need to do now is make a wish.]_   
  
"A wish?"   
  
_[Yes, Ms. Hebert. What is the wish that will make your soul gem shine?]_   
  
"I want to get out of this! I wish I could escape!"   
  
_[Very well, your wish has prevailed over entropy.]_   
  
My chest _burned_ . A screaming pain as if something was being ripped out of me. After an eternity of the pain, a ball of blue light floated in front of my eyes.   
  
_[Now take it. Take your destiny with your own hands, and unleash your power.]_   
  
The narrow locker made it almost impossible, but I reached up and took the ball of light.   
  
There was a flash of blue.


	5. Into a Mystic Rhyme

And then I woke up.  
  
I mean, when I say it like that it just sounds trite, but that’s the way it was. I went from the world vanishing around me as Coil fired a bullet straight at my soul gem, to lying on my face here.  
  
Wherever here was. I sat up stiffly and took a look around.  
  
It almost looked like a hallway at Winslow. I say almost because I didn't remember Winslow having quite so many overhead walkways and cratered cement floors. I also didn’t remember quite this much fire. The fire wasn’t actually hot though, and upon closer inspection, I saw that none of the walls or railings currently burning were actually being damaged by the flames at all.  
  
As I stood up to get a closer look, I realised I was out of my magical girl outfit and that my jacket had a large hole in it. How had that happened? Regardless, I probably needed to leave. If this place was Winslow, then an exit should be easy to find; I had internalised where they all were last year after all.  
  
As I made my way through the bizarre, almost-familiar hallways, I noticed a buzzing sound, not too unusual in the hallways of Winslow, the fluorescent lighting was just like that. But this sound was definitely moving, and definitely coming closer. I peeked around a corner in the hallway to see if I could find out what it was.  
  
A swarm of what I could only call bees flew past. Except if they were bees, they were bees made by a biotinker with apiphobia who’d never actually seen a bee. For a start, they looked as if they were knitted; black and yellow yarn woven together into stripes. They were also big, each one about the size of a football, with a six-inch black spike on the back in place of a stinger. As the swarm flew past I caught a glimpse of the front of one of the bees and mentally cursed whoever it was who made the things. A face, like nothing so much as the face of a doll I’d had as a kid, sat charred and blackened at the front of the ball shape, eyeless, with its mouth open, showing an orange glow inside.  
  
As if they could sense me watching, the bees stopped, then turned to me. For a brief moment nothing happened. Then as one, the swarm surged toward me. I froze up in fear. The glow from the bee’s mouths got brighter and they started breathing fire at me. My soul gem was trying to pull me away. I let it.  
  
There was a flash of blue.

 

\--------------------

  
_The blonde leading the group raiding the ABB casino had been right. This building wasn’t normal. I had been leery of trusting her and her team, but she had made good points and her intel was apparently good, even if it had taken some time to find the right building without just vanishing half of downtown. Still, I was here now, and that’s what mattered._ _  
_ _  
_ _The solid steel vault door in the basement that I was looking at would have been a problem for most people, but I just waved my left hand and the gem on the back of it flared green. The door was gone, revealing a long hallway beyond it. One of the chief architects of the city’s malaise was hiding here. Steel wouldn’t protect him. I stepped through the hole I had made as alarms began to blare._ _  
_ _  
_ _Another wave of my hand and the door at the far end of the hallway vanished. On the other side was a security station and six men in heavy armor pointing guns at me. I paused as one of them spoke._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Halt! State your business!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I’m here to see Coil. Is he in?” I stepped forward. The guards didn’t seem to like that._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I said stop! If you come any closer, we are authorised to use deadly force!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Well good for you. Could you tell me where your boss is first though? I don’t want to spend all night looking for him, and this place seems big.” Another step. Then a shot rang out._ _  
_ _  
_ _I was half expecting a gunshot, but this was more a zap sound. There was punch to my chest and a distant burning sensation, along with the smell of burned meat, strong enough to make its way into my helmet. I looked down to the new hole in my costume, and to the red and black mess of a burn beyond it. I looked back to the lead guard, his face a mask of panic._ _  
_ _  
_ _“That wasn’t nice. All I did was ask to talk to your boss and you had to go and shoot me!” I concentrated on the burn for a moment, like I had when I was shot before. The gem on the back of my hand lit up dully for a brief moment, and I knew both the wound and the hole in my costume were gone. The guards all looked panicked now, some of them fiddling with a dial on the side of their weapons. They leveled the guns at me, and all of them pulled their triggers._ _  
_ _  
_ _Beams of purple light raced toward me, and rather than get shot again, I jumped. I landed behind the guard on the leftmost side of the room, and he didn’t even notice I was there until I had thrown him into his neighbor. The loud crack that came from them could have just been their armor colliding, but frankly, I didn’t care all that much._ _  
_ _  
_ _In the end, more of them went down to friendly fire than to me. In their defense, I assume it is very hard to shoot someone who can move faster than you can see. I turned to the last guard._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Now I’ll ask again, before I get angry. Where’s Coil?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _It took some time, but he eventually told me._ _  
_ _  
_ _With that information it was simplicity itself to find Coil’s office. An elevator to a lower floor, then out to an elevated walkway above a large empty room to a surprisingly normal door. Of course there were more guards along the way. Not that they were any more of a deterrent than the first group was, but at least they tried._ _  
_ _  
_ _As I threw the last of the guards off the walkway, I caught sight of the gem on the back of my hand. It was definitely dimmer than it had been when I started all this, however long ago that was. It couldn’t have been more than a week, I knew that much. Anyway, the fact that the gem was dimmer, almost dark really, was probably important. I’d look into it when I was done here._ _  
_ _  
_ _With a wave the door was gone and I stepped into a surprisingly normal office. As I entered, the man behind the desk looked up, then pressed a button on top of a small black plastic box before folding his hands in front of his masked face. As he did I felt my hand spasm for a moment._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Please, sit,” he said, “I was told you were on your way.” This was not what I was expecting._ _  
_ _  
_ _“So, you’re Coil then?” I did not sit down._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I am. And you must be the new cape the Protectorate and ABB are looking for. You’ve made quite the splash over the last few days, I must say.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I had figured the Protectorate was looking for me, given how things had turned out that first night, but the ABB was news. Not surprising, but news. “Well I like to keep busy.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Busy. That’s an interesting way to put it. I suppose that means I am your next ‘project’?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“You are. From what I hear you’ve got plans for this city, and I don’t like the idea of some criminal mastermind taking over my city.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“‘Criminal mastermind’? I’m flattered. But who would you have protecting the city, if not me?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“The Protectorate for a start, New Wave, maybe. Heroes.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“If it’s heroes you want, then I’m afraid you will be sorely disappointed with those choices. Glory Girl has been known to beat people to near-death, only for Panacea to erase the evidence and heal them. And the Protectorate is, at best, as corrupt as any government institution. I get much of my information from within their walls, as a matter of fact. It may also interest you to know that the subject of your first… visit was, in fact a member of the Wards. Hardly an ideal poster child for heroism, don’t you agree?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _He was lying. He had to be. Maybe not about Glory Girl, I had no way of checking that, but the Wards taking in… them? That had to be impossible. They were the exact opposite of a hero! They were as evil as they came! Why else corrupt my friend like that? Why else put me through hell?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Although…_ _  
_ _  
_ _It would explain the fight though. And why the Protectorate had shown up so quickly. And how I had gotten shot._ _  
_ _  
_ _Fuck_ _  
_ _  
_ _Why hadn’t I noticed it before?_ _  
_ _  
_ _That explained why no one had never done anything! They were covering! If I hadn’t taken things into my own hands everything would have just continued and gotten worse._ _  
_ _  
_ _I couldn’t take it anymore._ _  
_ _  
_ _I screamed and the stone on the back of my hand flared. Half the desk, and half the man behind it, vanished in a flash of green. The remains of his mask fell from the remains of his head, revealing a shocked expression. He twitched once, reaching for the box on his desk, then collapsed._ _  
_ _  
_ _Then I felt my hand_ burn _. I looked down, and saw the gem, now almost solid black and swirling with a nauseating shade of something even darker. I clawed at it, pulled it off my hand, and threw it across the room while I ran out the other way. The hole I had left in the doorway was the last thing I saw before I collapsed and the world turned inside out._

 

\--------------------

  
I shook my head to clear it of the fuzz it was in. What was that? A hallucination of some sort? Something about another magical girl. I couldn’t remember it all. Usually teleporting didn’t do that sort of thing. I looked around and found that this time I was in an approximation of the gym. Still walkways and cement floors, still on fire, but at least free of bees.  
  
I took a look at my soul gem, Amanda had drilled a lot of what she called “good magic habits” into me over the past month, and was shocked to see how dark it was. Maybe the weird vision had something to do with that? I reached into my pocket for one of my grief cubes, only to find none there. I was sure I had still had some when I got into the van, and without any, and with my soul gem as dark as it was, I had maybe twenty teleports or a few days of regular living left before my soul gem got too clouded. This was not good.  
  
First order of business was to get out of this funhouse mirror version of my school, then find some wraiths to kill so I could stay alive.  
  
The nearest exit was just outside the gym, heading out to the area that was generously called the sports fields. Or, at least, that’s where it was supposed to be. For some reason I found myself heading back to the interior of the building. Weird. I turned around, thinking maybe I had somehow taken a wrong turn. The whole place was only mostly like Winslow, after all, so it wasn’t impossible. I stopped again when I realised I was walking the exact same path I had just turned from, heading back into the building.  
  
Okay, things were getting weird now. On a whim I decided to head to Mrs. Knott’s room, with the computers. Who knew? Maybe Hell had an internet connection. There were a few detours, either from missing hallways or swarms of bee things, but I was making progress. I was passing the cafeteria when I heard the scream.  
  
I was already bursting through the door before I realised what I was doing. I didn't see who it was who had screamed, but the pile of bee things by the vending machines was probably a good place to start.  
  
With a thought I was in my costume, with my rod in my hand. I leapt toward the bees and swung at the pile. Bees scattered through the air, and I saw a glint of silver under the remaining knitted insects. More swings of my rod cleared more bees away until I could see an arm. I grabbed it and pulled. A tall man in a silver and blue suit that covered him head to toe emerged from the pile and landed next to one of the soda machines, the one with the same logo as on the front of his costume. He must have been one of the corporate-sponsored capes who popped up from time to time, but what was he doing here?  
  
Answering that would have to wait, since apparently the bees didn't like being knocked around like that. The whole pile of monstrosities lifted off the ground and started an angry buzzing. As the swarm moved toward the unconscious cape, I dodged in and grabbed him, then leapt back away, landing at the other side of the room. Before the bees could make it to the two of us, I gathered myself. This would be risky, but it was also the best way I could think of to get away from this. I twitched my brain and motes of light gathered around us.  
  
There was a flash of blue.

 

\--------------------

 _  
_ _There was a crash from upstairs and I flinched in the alcove I’d hidden in. They had found me. I suppose it had only been a matter of time. I thought I had lost them. They hadn’t come after me after hiding in a basement in the docks for… however long I had hidden here, and I thought I was safe. Not that the Protectorate was bad, they were the heroes after all, but I didn’t want to have to explain why I had done what I had._ _  
_ _  
_ _Oh, well, better to stand up and face the music. I climbed the stairs from the basement and almost lost my head to an explosion. Shrapnel tore at my jacket and only a well-timed leap saved my arm from the same fate. I landed behind an upturned table and looked around the edge to try and figure out what was happening._ _  
_ _  
_ _I saw some sort of four-legged monster, all bone and red muscle, tearing through a row of tables like the one I was behind, while another one leapt out of a cloud of darkness at a man in black tactical gear who crumbled to dust just before the monster reached him._ _  
_ _  
_ _Okay, whatever was going on it involved capes. With a thought and a flash of green I was in my costume, ready to--_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Wish I could do that.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I whipped my head around and saw a blonde girl in a mask peeking out from behind another table behind me._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Who are you?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I mean, that’s gotta save some time in the morning,” the girl said as she scrambled over to my table, “It takes me a full 20 minutes to get this costume on and then something like this happens.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Like what?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Oh, well Oni Lee over there wasn't supposed to be here tonight, what with the Protectorate on alert because of that missing Ward. It’s why we moved up our timetable for this job in the first place. But it looks like Lung decided to step up security everywhere, not just his major spots."_ _  
_ _  
_ _“That’s Oni Lee?” I asked. If Oni Lee was here then that meant that this was--_ _  
_ _  
_ _“An ABB hideout, yeah. This one’s an unlicensed casino. We figured taking some money from them would be pretty easy, what with no capes guarding the place. Instead we get to deal with the mad teleport bomber. You wanna help?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“What? And how did you--”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“My power. Let’s me know things. Finishing someone’s sentences is an easy trick. All that aside, could you do us a solid and snap your fingers or whatever and make this problem go away?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Why were you here?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Like I said, we were--”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“You were robbing the place, weren't you? You’re a team of villains.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _The girl grinned sheepishly. “Technically, yes.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Then why don't I just leave you all to fight it out among yourselves? Fewer villains left by the end of it.” I eyed another table on its side close to a hole someone had blown in the wall and was about to jump to it and leave this… this villain behind to face whatever it was she’d brought on herself._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I mean,” she said, just before I jumped away, “You_ could _do that, sure. But what about everyone in the crossfire?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I turned back to look at her._ _  
_ _  
_ _“What? You thought everyone here was Evil? Far from it. Most of the people working here are just that. People working.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“They knew what they were getting into by joining a gang.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“They sure did. They got to survive a scary dragon man who would’ve killed them on the spot if they hadn't joined. They got jobs that paid enough that they could take care of their families. They got protection from the local Nazis who wanted them dead just because they weren't white. Do I need to keep going?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I shook my head. “Fine. You’ve made your point.” I stood up and saw Oni Lee appear on top of a roulette wheel just as an explosion went off on the other side of the room. I stepped in front of the table and got his attention._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Hey! Ninja Dave! We need to talk!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“What are you doing?” asked the girl from where she was still crouching behind the table._ _  
_ _  
_ _“He’s too far away for me to do anything right now,” I said, “Now unless you want to get blown up, keep your head down. Or don't. Whatever works.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _Oni Lee had heard my shout and looked towards me, then appeared directly in front of me as he collapsed into a pile of dust on the roulette wheel._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I didn't know the Undersiders got a new member,” he didn't so much speak as his voice slid from behind his mask, “Pity you didn't last.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _He began to collapse into dust just as a cry of “Look out!” came from behind the table. I watched in slow motion as an explosion began to bloom in the cloud of dust where Oni Lee had just been. The gem on my hand glowed softly. Once the fireball faded, there was a perfect circle of soot and fire interrupted only by a small wedge of clear floor, centered on me, where the explosion had ceased to be. The blonde stood up from behind the relatively undamaged table, looked at me, grinned, and ran off somewhere. I didn't care right now. I’d find her later. For now, Oni Lee._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Now isn't that unusual,” oozed his voice from the shadows, “Normally, people die when I kill them like that. You might actually be a challenge.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I smiled beneath my helmet and let it come out in my voice.“Whereas you are just an irritating bully.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _There was a sound behind me and I jumped just as a knife stabbed into where my heart had just been. I landed on the same roulette wheel Lee had been on earlier, stirring up a cloud of dust as I did. I closed my eyes and listened, trying to hear where my opponent might be. Crackling fires, left over from explosions, the heavy breathing of the bone monsters I had seen earlier, scrabbling footsteps as someone climbed free of a collapsed balcony. There. Just to my left and closing fast. The sound of padded feet. I spun and flung my open palm out just as Oni Lee’s head came within striking distance. My hand made contact and the gem flared. When the green light faded, Oni Lee had vanished again, but this time there wasn't even a speck of dust where he’d been._ _  
_ _  
_ _Someone began clapping slowly in another part of the room. I looked and saw a young man in a Seinfeld puffy shirt and cheap plastic mask. He saw me looking and clapped faster._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Bravo! Bravo!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Shut up, Regent,” said the blonde as she walked up behind Puffy Shirt._ _  
_ _  
_ _“What? She just bitch slapped Oni Lee out of existence! I think that deserves some applause.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“It_ was _pretty impressive,” came an echoing voice from inside the cloud of darkness. The darkness blew away to reveal a man in motorcycle leathers with a skull-faced helmet. As he stood up pieces of a table fell from his back and two women dressed as croupiers crawled out from under him and ran out a hole in the nearby wall._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Now,” said the blonde, turning away from her teammates, “Before you start your big 'destroy all villainy’ kick on us, can I just say something?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Let me guess, you’ve seen the error of your ways and will line up to join the Wards first thing tomorrow?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Oh, god no. Do I look insane? No. I just wanted to say that yeah, we’re technically villains, but not exactly by choice. Grue there is only doing this so he can get enough money to get custody of his sister from his creeper dad.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I’d really rather you didn't talk to everyone about my personal life, Tattletale,” said the guy in leathers._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Regent’s on the run from his, frankly, incredibly scary abusive father,” continued the blonde as if she hadn't heard, “Hell, I’m only on this team because the boss recruited me at literal gunpoint.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I thought you were here because you liked us,” said Puffy Shirt, Regent I guess, with a theatrical pout._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Regent, I would tie you up and leave you here if I thought I could get away with it.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Promises, promises.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“So what?” I interrupted, “I’m supposed to feel sorry for all of you because you’ve had tough lives? Well guess what? So have I.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“No, I know you have. You don't get powers like yours unless there’s something pretty big in your life. My point is that if you're really out to destroy all villainy in the Bay, you're better off starting at the head, as it were. Take out the ones who recruit people at gun- or dragon-point. The ones with the plans to take over the city.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“All I’m hearing here is excuses. Why shouldn’t I beat you all within an inch of your life and leave you for the Protectorate?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“Because we’re small fry and, honestly, couldn’t support ourselves without the backing our boss gives us. Get rid of him, and we fall apart with the rest of his operation in the aftermath.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“And who even is this boss of yours?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _The blonde grinned. “He’s called Coil.”_

 

\--------------------

  
The bad news was that there wasn't an internet connection. The good news was that Mrs. Knott’s classroom, or at least this approximation of it, was free of bees. There was also the question of these hallucinations I was having whenever I teleported. They didn't seem to take any time to happen, I just arrived at my destination with them having happened and me half-remembering them. There was something familiar about the girl in them though, I just couldn't put my finger on what it was.  
  
After a few minutes the cape I had rescued finally woke up. It was hard to tell for sure, what with his whole head covered by his costume, but I was pretty sure he was surprised to still be alive. Eventually he noticed me.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
“I’m the one who pulled you out of a pile of bees.” At the mention of bees he looked around nervously. “We’re safe here, for now, but we should probably leave as soon as possible.”  
  
He laughed. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past day? The Protectorate sent me into the Anomaly with a bunch of science equipment, and as soon as I jump in the exit disappears!”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Why you, specifically? I’m pretty sure you’re not from around here, and the Protectorate doesn’t usually allow corporate sponsors, so you’re not with them. Why did they send you here?”  
  
“It’s my power,” the cape said, “Once I start running nothing can hurt me, and I just keep going until I stop. They thought I’d be able to map the Anomaly, or at least be able to get back out again after I went in.”  
  
“What’s the Anomaly?”  
  
He laughed again. “Where have you been for the past month? One day downtown Brockton Bay lights up all the fancy Tinkertech detection equipment on the planet saying there’s some sort of ‘dimensional interference’, whatever that’s supposed to mean. No one knows what happened except there’s a space in the basement of a building that every time anything tries to enter it, it ends up here, then the signals cut out. People are calling it ‘the Anomaly’ because it sounds better than any of the other things anyone’s come up with. Sounds more sciencey too.”  
  
“So there’s a hole that leads from downtown Brockton Bay to wherever this is?”  
  
“Basically. The brains were thinking it was like the hole to Earth Aleph, but the readings were different,” he gestured to a bag strapped to his back, “They sent me in with all this tech to try and get some useful information.”  
  
“Except that now you’re stuck.”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“Are you okay to run? Could you find where you came in again?”  
  
“Of course,” he said as he stood and dusted himself off, “This place isn’t that big, there’s just no way out.”  
  
I nodded, then opened the door and checked down the hall for bees. There were none.  
  
“I see you’re in costume,” said the cape as he stepped past me into the hall, “Can you keep up?”  
  
“I’ll be fine.” Or at least I hoped I would be. Keeping up with him shouldn’t use too much of what remained of my magic. I could last.  
  
“Alright then,” he nodded and began to run.  
  
He wasn’t as fast as, say, Velocity, but he was still faster than I had expected. Less than a second after he started he was already at the far end of the hall, turning right. I jumped after him, letting my enhanced leg strength push me forward. I reached the end of the hall and jumped after him again just as he turned to avoid a swarm of bee things. I angled myself just so and pushed off one of the bees to follow the cape, ignoring the blasts of fire that filled the air behind me after I had gone.  
  
After only a few more detours we arrived at what could only have been the main entrance. All told it looked very much like the main entrance at Winslow, even if the floor was littered with what could only be Tinkertech drones, flying probes, and a few piles of black dust. Also, the doors were missing. Instead, the walls just bled together in a way that hurt the eyes to follow, going from one side of the entryway to the other without a transition so much as a sudden realization that you were looking exactly behind yourself without having turned around.  
  
The cape skidded to a stop, and I landed less than a moment after. He looked at me and nodded, making a small noise of approval.  
  
“Not many people can keep up with me when I run full tilt like that.”  
  
“It’s a gift. You say the doors vanished as soon as you came in?”  
  
“Yes, the walls just sort of merged together, like you see now.”  
  
I focused with my magic on where the doors should have been, and felt something tickling the back of my brain. “I think I see how to get us out of here, but it might take some time.”  
  
“That’s good, but how long will it take? I don’t think those bees liked you jumping off of them.”  
  
Now that he mentioned it, I could hear the droning buzz of the bee things getting closer.  
  
“I’ll hurry then.”  
  
I turned back to the twist of wall where I had sensed something and held my hand out to it. This needed to be fast. The first of the bees rounded a corner and started accelerating towards us. We needed to get out of here. My soul gem flashed dimly and a circle appeared in front of me, a silhouette of a wasp ringed by runes I felt I could almost understand. I didn’t know how I knew, but this was our way out.  
  
I grabbed the cape who looked at the circle, then to me, “What the hell are you doing?” he asked.  
  
I didn’t have time for a full explanation, so I went the easy way. “Magic.” I dragged him to the circle and threw him through just as the bees arrived. This time they weren’t bothering with breathing fire. Instead they all flipped on their ends and flew, stinger spikes first, straight at me. I jumped backwards, hoping the circle was still there.  
  
It was. The burning school vanished around me, replaced by a familiar office. Coil’s office. I couldn’t gape in confusion for very long though, because one of the bees had made it through after me. I threw up my arms to block its stinger from reaching my face and fire erupted from my right hand as it connected. I screamed as I felt the skin burning off. The bee began to unravel itself as we got further from the circle, now rapidly shrinking, and both were completely gone by the time I hit the floor. The fire engulfing my hand went out a moment after, leaving a charred and blackened husk behind.  
  
By the time the pain faded to a tolerable level I became aware of the squad of PRT troopers clustered at the office door, aiming guns and spray nozzles at my face.  
  
I made my way to my feet, moving slowly both to show I wasn't going to try anything and because the remains of my hand still hurt, and raised my arms above my head.  
  
“Hey,” I said with a slight smile, “I hate to ask, but could I borrow one of your phones?”

 

\--------------------

  
_“Who is this, how did you get this number, and what god-awful reason do you have for waking me up?”_  
  
None of the PRT troopers had been willing to lend me a phone, and had insisted on taking me and the cape I had rescued first through a debriefing on what had happened, then to a hospital where there were entirely too many people asking the same questions about my health over and over again. During what I was told were normal medical tests for someone in my situation, they offered me what could only be described as the hospital gown version of a superhero outfit; papery fabric that somehow managed to never completely close and covered even less than my magical girl outfit, and a full face mask made of some sort of black cloth. Needless to say, I declined and stayed in my magical clothes, which breathed really well, and didn’t seem to be dirty at all.  
  
What felt like hours later, after tests on my burned hand, bandages for it and scrapes I didn’t even realise I had, and a brain scan for some reason, I had finally been left alone in a room with a phone. I took my chance while I had it and called Amanda. Who was apparently not in a good mood.  
  
“What do you mean waking you up? It’s 10:30 in the morning!”  
  
_“They make a 10:30 in the_ morning _now? Who came up with that? It’s a terrible idea. Whoever did it should be shot. And you still haven’t answered my questions.”_  
  
“What? Oh, right. Well it’s me, Taylor, you gave me this number when you woke me up in the hospital last month, and I was hoping to ask a favor.”  
  
_“A favor? At this time of day? It had better be important.”_  
  
“It kind of is, yeah. See, I just fought my way out of that thing they’re calling the ‘Anomaly’ here in Brockton Bay, and now I’m low on magic. I’ve been keeping an eye out for wraiths, but as far as I can tell, they’re all gone. Not a single wraith in the whole city. No Incubators I can find either, but I’m not as worried about that.”  
  
_“Look Taylor, was it? I’ll give it to you straight, since you seem nice, and since you’ve said enough of the right words to tell me you’re one of us. So far as I can remember, I’ve never met a Taylor in Brockton Bay, let alone given one my number.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “What? But we--”  
  
_“Let me finish. I’ve never met you, but I’ve got some ideas about what might be going on. Firstly, the ‘Anomaly’. I’ve got no idea what it is except that it’s definitely magic.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “Which is why I could get out, but no one else could?”  
  
_“Dollars to donuts that’s why, yeah. It also gives us a reasonable first theory for why you know me, but I don’t know you. Namely that magic is damn weird. That’s not actually an answer, but it gives you some questions to ask._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Second thing, wraiths. With a great big magical hole open in your city I’d honestly be more surprised if the wraiths were all there and acting normal. See above, RE: magic is weird. Can’t speak to why the space cats aren’t there though, they usually love watching when weird magic shit is going down.”_  
  
“Honestly, I’m not sure what they’d have been able to help with anyway.”  
  
“ _Ha! You got that right! Anyway, third thing. The favor. Here’s where it gets tricky, since you’re not the only one with a wraith shortage right now. All of us on the east coast are feeling the pinch, and have been for the last month. Now that I think of it, it’s probably the same thing that’s got all of yours missing. I’ll see what we can spare here, cube-wise, but don’t expect too much.”_  
  
“Anything would help, I’m down to maybe two days here, less if I have to fight something.”  
  
_“I hear you. I’ll put a rush on it.”_  
  
“Thanks for this, really.”  
  
_“Hey, don’t worry about it. We look after our own,"_ There was a noise on the other end of the line, _“Hey, I gotta go. I’ll see what I can do for you about rushing those cubes.”_ The line went dead.  
  
“Well,” I said to myself, “It could’ve been worse.” I had wanted to ask Amanda about the things I had seen while I was in the Anomaly, but from what she’d said, it sounded like she wouldn’t know anything more about it than I did.  
  
_[Indeed it could have. Ms. O’Neill and her cohort are usually a good place to turn when a magical girl needs help.]_  
  
“Speaking of worse. How are you, Cubes?” I asked the space cat as he walked around the corner of the hospital bed.  
  
_[I am well. I would like to ask you a few questions, if you do not mind.]_  
  
“About the Anomaly?”  
  
_[Indeed. I suspect I will not be the last either. You and the parahuman you rescued are the first to get out alive. There are many who will have questions for you.]_  
  
“So you’re here to beat the rush. Fine, here’s what I know. I woke up there, saw a bunch of weird shit, then magiced us a door to get out.”  
  
_[Fascinating. You say you woke up_ inside _the Anomaly? That offers some evidence for one of our working theories.]_  
  
“Oh? Do tell.”  
  
_[First you should know that your existence is itself odd. There are no Incubator records of any recent contract resulting in powers like yours, and the record we have for a contract with one Taylor Hebert, to whom you appear in every physical way identical, and whose name you used to identify yourself to Ms. O’Neill, indicates that she disappeared after contracting. Just before the Anomaly opened, in fact.]_  
  
“Wait, so you’re saying you don’t know who I am?” _  
_ _  
_ _[I suspect you are Taylor Hebert, just not the one native to this timeflow.]_  
  
“Explain.” _  
_ _  
_ _[There are perhaps three humans on this planet that would understand the full implications, but phrased in such a way that you can understand, the best way to put it would be to say that we now believe the Anomaly is a subspace hole projecting itself into the bulk of alternate worlds. You, with your particular powerset, found your way out of your timeflow, and into the Anomaly.]_  
  
“And why has that gotten rid of the wraiths?”  
  
_[That we cannot answer. Wraiths are a side-effect of magic, and magic behaves in unpredictable manners that do not always follow physical laws.]_ _  
_ _  
_ “Alright then, what happened to the me who used to live here? Maybe she can help.”  
  
_[As I said, she has not been seen since before the Anomaly opened. This is unfortunate, as she had the potential to solve a recurring problem we have. The most likely theory we have for her disappearance is that the Anomaly somehow ejected her from this timeflow, leaving a metaphysical space in which you eventually arrived.]_  
  
“Fine. So no help from Amanda or myself then. Is there a way I can get back to my original, what did you call it? Timeflow?”  
  
_[There have been reports in the past of magical girls engaging in transprobability and transtemporal travel, but by their magical nature, these reports are unreproducible. We Incubators have elected to not pursue the technology for our goals, given how energy-intensive it tends to be. Far better to focus on saving our native reality and leaving the Incubators in other realities to take care of themselves. Given that we have not been contacted by our alternate-universe doppelgangers seeking energy, we assume they feel the same way.]_  
  
“So you can’t help me then.”  
  
_[Unfortunately not. I would suggest asking the local parahumans, as there are several of them who traverse timeflows commonly.]_  
  
I sighed. Cubes was ever-helpful. “Can you give me a name at least?”  
  
_[As I said, there are several. The nearest to your geographic location would be Rebecca Brown, who is currently three miles north-northwest from this building.]_  
  
"Who?”  
  
_[She is here investigating the Anomaly for several organizations, including the PRT and Protectorate.]_ Cubes began to fade away. _[Be well, Ms. Hebert, We look forward to observing your future activities. They have been quite enlightening so far.]_  
  
And the cat was gone.

 

\--------------------

  
Three hours later there was a tapping at my window. I got out of bed to open it, figuring it was probably Amanda with her promised grief cubes. The only people who had come in since my phone call were a few different nurses, and a PRT official, in a suit this time, instead of armor, asking for a confirmation of my earlier statements. She had said that a Protectorate member would be coming by to ask me more specific questions once the data we’d retrieved from the Anomaly had been analyzed, and could I please not leave?  
  
Well, it wasn’t Amanda at the window, that was for sure, but I had a feeling that the flying roomba was from her anyway. I opened the window and the roomba landed on the bed and the top opened. Inside was a piece of paper taped to a small box. I unfolded the paper and read the note

 

 

> _Taylor,_ _  
> _ _Sorry I couldn’t come in person, but turns out I’ve got some problems on the home front to deal with. Nothing to worry about, just some trouble with a few of the more stubborn local capes. Speaking of, if you did just fall out of the bunghole of the universe then five gets you ten someone big will be wanting to talk to you about it. Whatever you say is up to you, but remember that most people don't believe in magic, so you might want to have a cover story, just in case._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _Now, on to more immediate matters. In the box you’ll find as many grief cubes as I could scrounge up on short notice. It’s not much, but it should help at least some. There’s also something that Constanze has put together for all of us here in Boston. It should help reduce your magic usage a bit. It’s easy enough to use; just point and think._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _Anyway, gotta go, the Ambassadors won’t wait forever. Come visit when you’ve got a chance,_ _  
> _ _Amanda_

  
Inside the box were three grief cubes and a small wooden handle. I used one of of the cubes immediately, and put the others in my pocket for later. My soul gem wasn’t anywhere near clean, but I was feeling better than I had since I'd woken up, so I was counting that as a plus.  
  
The roomba had apparently flown out the window while I was using the grief cube, so I was left alone with the wooden handle, which looked oddly familiar. I picked it up with my good hand and saw was a small button near the top. I pressed it and a metal shaft tipped with two points popped out of it. Ah, it was a wand like Amanda’s then. I swung it around a few times and the space between the two tips glowed blue. Neat.  
  
That’s when someone at the door cleared their throat. I turned around sheepishly, and saw one of my childhood icons standing in the doorway.  
  
“Uh, hello?” I said.  
  
“Hello,” replied Armsmaster, “I have a few questions for you, if you’re not too busy?” He looked at the glowing wand in my hand, which I quickly stuffed into a pocket in my skirt.  
  
“Oh, uh, sure,” I said, trying not to sound awestruck, “About the Anomaly?”  
  
Armsmaster looked oddly at that. “No. Your testimony from earlier said you don’t know what it is any more than we do, and I see no reason to distrust that yet. Instead I’d like to ask some other questions, some of which may seem a bit odd.”  
  
I smiled, mostly to myself, “Odd is something I’ve gotten used to recently.”  
  
“Very well then, we’ll start simple,” he did something to his glove and a light turned on on the fingertip. “Please speak clearly into the microphone when answering. Firstly, what would you like to be called? I understand if you don’t want to use your civilian name, but we have to put something down for the paperwork.”  
  
“I, uh… I don’t really have a cape name.” I admitted, “I never really thought of one.”  
  
Armsmaster frowned and did something to his gauntlet.  
  
“Well, what can you do? We can give you a provisional one now, based on your powerset.”  
  
“I’m strong,” I said, “And fast.”  
  
“Those are rather basic as far as powers go,” more fiddling with the gauntlet, “Do you have anything else?”  
  
“I can teleport. I’d show you, but it’s a bit dangerous for my health right now.”  
  
“A limit on your powers?”  
  
“Something like that. I think it might be related to the Anomaly.”  
  
“Hmm, I see.” I’m not convinced he believed me, but he seemed to let it lie. “Now one of the odd questions are you familiar with the term ‘corona pollentia’?”  
  
“No, what is it?”  
  
“It’s a pseudo-lobe in a parahuman’s brain that administers power use. Every parahuman has one, and only parahumans and potential parahumans have it at all. Without one, you have no powers.”  
  
“And why does this matter?”  
  
Armsmaster pressed a button and his armor displayed and image on the wall next to us. It was a series of pictures of a brain, with some parts circled. I couldn’t tell what was supposed to be circled, but presumably it was important.  
  
“Because, miss strong, fast, teleports, and opens portals to and from impossible places, _you don’t have one_ .”  
  
Well, there went any hope of a cover story.  
  
“But I still have powers, and you want to know why.”  
  
“For a start.”  
  
Well Amanda had said that whatever I said was up to me, that meant the only real question was whether or not I trusted Armsmaster, head of the Protectorate East North-East and one of the best Tinkers on the planet.  
  
“Can you keep a secret?” I asked.  
  
“It is a large part of my job to do just that.”  
  
“I don’t mean lying about how the city is going to hell, I mean something big.”  
  
“Miss, I do not appreciated being condescended to.” There was a note of warning in his voice.  
  
I took a deep breath. I did not want to piss off this man. I made my choice.  
  
“My powers aren’t like normal parahuman powers, the ones from Scion, instead--”  
  
“What do you mean, ‘from Scion’?”  
  
“Apparently most powers come from Scion? Who’s apparently an alien, and is giving out powers to try and save the universe from heat death? I’m not too certain on the details.”  
  
Armsmaster sounded incredulous, at best. “And how do you know this?”  
  
An alien space cat told me, but something told me that wouldn’t fly as an answer right now. Not with Armsmaster acting like I had just told him that Behemoth enjoyed tap dancing and watercolors.  
  
“It’s hard to explain, but I’m not exactly from around here.”  
  
“From Brockton Bay?”  
  
“No, I’m from Brockton Bay, just not _this_ Brockton Bay.”  
  
Armsmaster leaned forward. “What do you mean?”  
  
“The word that was used was 'timeflow’? Something like Earth Aleph, except where I’m from everything was basically like it is here, just no Anomaly.”  
  
“Impossible. Aleph is the closest alternate Earth we can access and it diverged 29 years ago. Any potential divergences since then are inaccessible due to the Haywire Limit.”  
  
“The what?”  
  
“The Haywire Limit,” said a voice. Armsmaster and I both turned to see Alexandria standing in the doorway. My jaw may have dropped. “It was proposed as a reason for why none of Professor Haywire’s recovered equipment could access any universes that diverged more recently than 1982. If he were still alive, we could ask him about it, but unfortunately, we don’t have him here.”  
  
Armsmaster stood up. “Ma’am, are you suggesting that--”  
  
“I’ll take over the interview from here, Armsmaster. Dragon said she needed your help with a piece of monitoring equipment.”  
  
“Probably the subspatial wave field oscillator,” he mumbled as he walked out the door, closing it behind him. Once he was gone, Alexandria sat in the chair he had left behind.  
  
“Now, where had you gotten to before I interrupted?”  
  
“Something about my powers are weird because my brain is missing the kronal potential or something?”  
  
“The corona pollentia. I’m not as concerned about that as he was. You and I both know that powers can be strange, and that sometimes, if you wish hard enough, a little magic can happen.”  
  
I froze. Did Alexandria know? She was head of the entire Protectorate, she probably knew all kinds of secrets. But Amanda had said magical girls usually kept to ourselves. Usually.  
  
“Magic isn’t real,” I tried.  
  
“30 years ago neither were superheroes and yet…” To prove her point, Alexandria floated up out of her chair, then back into it. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio.”  
  
“I’m not a ghost.”  
  
“But you do know your Shakespeare.”  
  
“Mom was an English teacher. I know a lot of the classics.”  
  
“Do you know a Dr. Miyafuji?”  
  
“Haven't read that one. Is it by Marlowe?”  
  
“She's not a play she’s, well she's like you.”  
  
“Ah,” Screw it, I’d probably forget my cover story anyway. “In that case, I can’t help much.  I’ve only been at this a month; I barely know anyone. And one of the people I do know doesn’t know me in this universe.”  
  
“So that’s who you called. Our trace kept coming up blank. We were all scratching our heads over that one.”  
  
“You believe me about being from a different universe?”  
  
“I see six impossible things a day before breakfast. What’s one more? What I want to know is how you found out about Scion.”  
  
Again, an alien space cat told me. But that would require more explanation than I was willing, or probably able, to give right now. Instead, much as I hated it, I gave the simple answer.  
  
“Magic. Same way I know there’s someone here in town who apparently travels between universes regularly and she might be able to help me get back home.”  
  
“I wasn’t aware of any local dimensional travel capes,” said Alexandria, “What’s she called?”  
  
“I don’t know her cape name, is that going to be a problem?”  
  
“Potentially, maybe. You know her civilian name then?”  
  
“Rebecca Brown.”  
  
Alexandria looked at me, oddly. “That name, in conjunction with dimensional travel. Where did you hear it?”  
  
“Like I said, magic. It’s not a great explanation, but it’s what I’ve got.”  
  
“Magic, right. I should have expected. How many other people know that name?”  
  
“None that I know of.” Assuming that Cubes didn't count as a person, anyway.  
  
“Door. Headquarters.”  
  
“Sorry, what?”  
  
My question answered itself when a hole ripped itself into the air next to Alexandria. She gestured to it with a small grin.  
  
“Please, step into my office.”  
  
With little other choice, I walked through the hole in space and felt a weird falling sensation that felt almost familiar. The sensation cut off abruptly and I found myself in a nice-looking office that, rather disconcertingly, had no doors or windows. Alexandria stepped out of the hole behind me, which then sealed itself leaving me alone in a closed room with one of the most powerful people on the planet. She stepped over to her desk, sat down, and took off her visor.  
  
Wait, Alexandria just _took off her visor_ . She unmasked in front of me! What was going on here?  
  
Alexandria looked at me and smiled a little. “I should say at this point that I already know who you are. One of the benefits of my positions is access to very good information gathering. So, Taylor Hebert, I’m Rebecca Costa-Brown. Welcome to Cauldron.”

 

\--------------------

  
Well wasn’t that a nice pile of secrets all at once. Alexandria, secretly head of the PRT. The PRT and Protectorate, fronts for an interdimensional conspiracy to kill Scion. Scion, a ticking time bomb waiting to kill everyone on multiple Earths.  
  
Things might have been a bit better if it hadn’t turned out that none of Alexandria’s Secret Society of Secrets could even start looking for my universe until after the Anomaly had been closed. Something about interference waveform patterns and probability maps. But since I was the only person who could get out of the Anomaly, I volunteered to go into it again.  
  
All that aside, something told me Cauldron wouldn’t be helping me get home anyway. Not if magic interacted with Scion like it did with everything else, which is to say, however the hell it wanted. Magical girls might be the only way to get to him at all.  
  
I’d burn that bridge when I got to it. For now, here I was walking back into Coil’s base and to the Anomaly. The PRT guards escorting me seemed nervous, and really I couldn’t blame them. There were missing chunks of wall and floor everywhere. The whole place was disconcerting on a deep level, and I had no idea why.  
  
My guards and I arrived at the last door before the room that had been Coil’s office. Or rather, the last place a door wasn't. I paused on the hanging walkway and looked at the five-foot-wide hole in the wall where the door had been. One of the visions I’d had inside the Anomaly had been the mystery girl making this hole. Whatever had set her off on a rampage that ended in all this couldn’t have been good. Especially given the feeling I’d gotten after Coil had said whatever he’d said to her. I felt I could almost remember what it was, but the actual words were just out of reach. I’d deal with it later.  
  
I looked through the hole and what I saw looked basically like Coil’s office had last time I was in it, with one or two small differences. Chief among them “What’s that smell?”  
  
“The body,” replied one of the PRT escorts, “We’ve tried to get rid of it, but anyone who goes through the door ends up in the Anomaly.”  
  
“Have you tried the secret entrance in the back of the room?”  
  
“The what?”  
  
“The secret entrance? Leads to a parking garage nearby?” The full-face helmets of my escort meant I couldn’t be sure, but I felt as if they were all looking at me weird. “Did you not know about the secret entrance?”  
  
“We did not. We’ll call it in and see what we can find. How did you know about it?”  
  
“Magic,” I sighed. I’d have to be sure to apologise to Amanda later for thinking she was being deliberately irritating whenever she answered one of my questions that way. Assuming I ever saw the version of her that knew me again, that was. “Anyway, what’s the plan here? I go in and see if I can find out what’s going on in there?”  
  
“Essentially, yes, Ma’am. And stop it if possible. If there’s no change within four hours, we are to resume our previous monitoring positions and detain or destroy anything coming from inside the Anomaly.”  
  
“Great. No pressure on me then.” I turned back to the hole and swallowed. I stepped forward into Coil’s office and watched the world begin to melt away from me and be replaced by the twisted version of my school. All I had to do now was track down what was causing this mess and then, with luck, I’d be able to get back home.

 

\--------------------

  
_I’ll give her one thing, she made herself hard to track down. Her house was easy enough to find, but she wasn’t there. I waited for an hour until a white van pulled up to the house and she stepped out. I gathered power in my left hand, ready to jump down and deal with her, when the door to her house opened. A middle-aged woman stepped out and started talking, ushering her reluctantly inside. Her mother? Possibly. I could tell just from how the two of them interacted that there was no love lost between them._ _  
_ _  
_ _The mother’s presence complicated things though. Having witnesses had never helped me before, I doubted it would start now. I would have to wait for an opportunity. That was fine. Waiting I could do. I’d been doing it for almost two years by now. What was another two hours?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Pure torture. That’s what another two hours was. I had to spend all that time crouched on the rooftop across from her building waiting for the lights to go out, watching to make sure she didn’t leave. While the costume that had come with my new powers wasn’t uncomfortable, by the time everyone was asleep my legs had developed a cramp that made it hard to move. I focused on the cramp for a moment, wanting it gone. The back of my hand glowed green, and the cramp was gone._ _  
_ _  
_ _Huh. That was neat._ _  
_ _  
_ _With my legs back to working condition, I stood and prepared myself to jump. I had had plenty of time to work out how I wanted to do this while I was waiting, and I had decided that she should know why I was here. Give her the knowledge that I never had._ _  
_ _  
_ _I confirmed where her window was on the building opposite, then leapt._ _  
_ _  
_ _I landed in her room amid the sound of breaking glass and turned to face her bed. Her empty bed._ _  
_ _  
_ _I began to turn, to look for her in another part of the room when I heard a soft noise like a string being plucked. Then a sting, and my shoulder erupted in pain. I screamed and fell to my knees, grasping at my shoulder. Through the pain I found I was pulling at some sort of shaft extending all the way through me._ _  
_ _  
_ _That_ bitch _had shot me with an_ arrow! _  
_ _  
_ _There were footsteps behind me, and suddenly she was in front of me with a crossbow, lifting my head up to get a good look at my helmet._ _  
_ _  
_ _“I thought you were new,” she said, “Word of advice, kid, get better at hiding when you’re doing a stakeout. You stood out like a sore thumb. And maybe invest in a costume that isn’t so bright.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _My only response was to claw at the arrow some more._ _  
_ _  
_ _“No, don’t do that. Even if you did pull it out, then you’d just be bleeding everywhere. Besides, with the noise you made coming in, the Protectorate will be here soon enough. They’ll deal with that for you.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I focused on the pain and on the arrow. I wanted them gone. A green flash of light from my hand and they both were. There wasn’t even a hole in the costume to show where the arrow had been. I stood and loomed over her. She punched me and I fell back down._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Neat trick, but you should really learn to fight before you break into my place.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I picked myself up into a crouch. I could tell she was waiting for me to jump at her, so I didn’t disappoint. She tried to duck out of the way so I’d miss and end up on the floor again, but she underestimated just how fast I really was. I grabbed her and slammed her against the wall, leaving it cracked beneath her. Her crossbow clattered to the ground and she raised her arms._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Okay,” she wheezed, “I know when I’m outclassed. What do you want?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I pulled my helmet off and looked her straight in the eyes. She blinked, and I saw the understanding grow in her._ _  
_ _  
_ _She began to laugh. “It was the locker, wasn’t it, Hebert?”_ _  
_ _  
_ _I punched her in her dumb mouth, but she only laughed more. Another punch and something cracked in my hand. She kept laughing. I heard sirens and engine noises from outside. I was out of time. I looked at her one last time, then snapped the fingers of my left hand._ _  
_ _  
_ _With a flash of green she was gone. I turned to the broken window I had come in through and saw three members of the Protectorate on the street outside. This was not something I could deal with right now. I stepped to the edge of the window, ignoring the three capes now looking at me, and leapt away into the night._

 

\--------------------

  
I blinked and stumbled to the ground in one of the piles of ashy dust scattered around the entranceway. That had been Sophia. That had been Sophia and _she had said my name_ . The magical girl in those visions, she was me. Everything fell into place. Cubes had said that the me from this reality had vanished after the Anomaly had opened. Amanda had said the Anomaly was magical. Coil told the other me that Sophia was Shadow Stalker, she reacted poorly, and hey, presto! Anomaly. I’d figure out how I should react to the Sophia bombshell later, once I was done figuring out how to deal with the fact that other-me had killed at least three people and opened a hole in reality. How had that happened anyway?  
  
I thought back to the the first of the visions I had seen. Coil had the same device as my Coil did when I saw him. The one that put people in a bubble universe. Maybe the Anomaly was some weird interference between Tinkertech and other-Taylor’s magic. And I was the only one who could get out of it, why? Because this whole madhouse was from my brain anyway? Because of my powers? Both? Regardless, It was me who made the Anomaly, sort of, so it was me who had to take care of it.  
  
The droning buzz of bee things alerted me to a swarm rounding the corner. They saw me and flew straight at me, opening their mouths to breathe fire. The burned remains of my hand throbbed as I pulled the wand Amanda had sent me from where I had left it in my skirt. In my other hand I summoned my baton. As it appeared it leapt from my hand and twisted around the wand and merged into it.  
  
The result was stouter than the baton, but longer than the wand, and somehow I knew exactly what to do with it. I pointed it at the swarm of bee things and wanted them to burn. A ball of blue flew from the tip of my new wand and into the swarm, where it exploded. Violently. The bee things unraveled in the blast and there was a series of small _plink_ noises as their stinger spikes fell to the ground. This was good. That blast had taken far less magic than it should have, given its size. Now I could fight them instead of sneaking around. Not that I needed to. If I, the other me, was behind the Anomaly, then I had a feeling I knew exactly where to find her.  
  
I set off down the hallway, knowing the way by heart. Any swarms in my way were blown apart as I made my way to what, in hindsight, was the most obvious place for an alternate version of me to summon from her mental landscape of horrors.  
  
The Locker. Of course it was the Locker. Sitting in the middle of a twenty-foot crater, but still recognisably the Locker.  
  
I looked down the hallway for bee things. I cleaned my soul gem as much as I could with the two grief cubes I had left. I looked for bees again. I realised I was stalling. Why didn't I want to open this locker? I had opened my locker dozens of times since I had come back to school, why would this be any different?  
  
Stupid question. As bad as it could get, school was a normal place with normal problems. The only monsters there were human. Well, mostly human anyway. This place was anything but normal. My burned hand twinged, reminding me that the monsters here were far more literal, taken from other-me's nightmares. And I didn't want to know what nightmares she had about the Locker. Mine were bad enough.  
  
Still, there was nothing for it. Even if I didn’t feel at least partly responsible for all that had happened here, this was still my best bet at a way home, assuming Alexandria kept her end of the bargain, which she probably would try not to. I dropped into the crater and walked to the locker door. Rather than fiddle with the lock, a tricky prospect even when magic wasn’t involved, I just ripped the door off. It was surprisingly therapeutic.  
  
Inside were not the horrors I had expected and feared. Instead there was a black plastic box, identical to the device my Coil had said canceled powers. The light on top glowed yellow, indicating that it was still on. What kind of batteries did this thing have that it could stay on for a full month? Probably something to do with Tinkers.  
  
My thoughts about batteries were forgotten when I saw the second thing in the locker. Sitting on top of the box, just next to the light, was what could only have been a soul gem. The gilding had tarnished and corroded, and the gem itself only showed hints of green, instead mostly being a color that wasn’t exactly black, but more the color black wanted to be when it grew up. I reached with my non-burned hand to pick it up to deal with later.  
  
The moment I touched the soul gem, a shock went through my body. I say shock, but that’s a bit of an understatement. What actually happened was my entire body seized as every nerve ending in my arm lit up and screamed the same thing into my brain.  
  
This. Was. Wrong.  
  
My vision began to fray at the edges. My head pounded like my brain wanted out of my skull. My hand clenched around the soul gem so tight I was surprised it didn’t break. Through everything there was only one way out I could see. There was only one thing I could see at all. My vision narrowed itself to the single point of yellow light on top of the box. I raised my right arm, and brought my burned hand down onto the light as hard as I could. I felt the box split in two under my hand.  
  
The yellow glow remained. A single point of light fixed in the center of my vision as everything else went dark.

 

\--------------------

  
_There was just enough light to see. That was the worst part. It wasn't the stench, it wasn't the feeling of the used tampons and pads going up past my knees, it wasn't even the small space of the locker itself, keeping me from moving. No, it was the light. It was the four small bars of light coming through the door, giving me just enough to know where I was, what I was standing in, and that no one was coming to rescue me. There was no way out._ _  
_ _  
_ _I tried to shut it all out. I closed my eyes, I covered my ears, I tried to ignore where I was. In my mind I screamed in rage, reaching out for anyone, anything to help me. For a moment I saw a million pinpricks of light, each one buzzing with its own actions. As I reached out to touch them, they vanished. In their place was a voice. Childlike, but with a sense of purpose behind it._ _  
_ _  
_ [That was close. I almost missed you Ms. Hebert.] _  
_ _  
_ _"Missed me?" I shouted, "What do you mean? Who the hell are you? Get me out of here!"_ _  
_ _  
_ [I can help you get yourself out, if you like, but you'll need to do something first.] _  
_ _  
_ _"What? You're blackmailing me?"_ _  
_ _  
_ [Not at all. But my physical form is rather limited, so I need you to do one thing, and then you will be able to get out.] _  
_ _  
_ _"Fine. What do I need to do?"_ _  
_ _  
_ [Just make a contract with me and become a magical girl!] _  
_ _  
_ _"A Contract? Magic? Are you insane? Just get me out of here!"_ _  
_ _  
_ [I assure you, my mental faculties are sound. All you need to do is make a wish. For anything you want.] _  
_ _  
_ _"A wish?"_ _  
_ _  
_ [Yes, Ms. Hebert. What is the wish that will make your soul gem shine?] _  
_ _  
_ _A wish for anything I wanted. I thought for a moment, then finally spoke._ _  
_ _  
_ _"I want power. I want to get rid of all the shit I've had to deal with until now. I wish I could erase the monsters that put me here with my own hands."_ _  
_ _  
_ [Very well, your wish has successfully reduced entropy.] _  
_ _  
_ _My chest began to throb, then burn as if something was being ripped out. I screamed, and a ball of green light floated up in front of my eyes._ _  
_ _  
_ [Now take it. Take your destiny with your own hands, and unleash your power.] _  
_ _  
_ _The narrow locker made it almost impossible, but I reached up and took the ball of light. There was a flash of green, and everything for ten feet around me vanished._ _  
_ _  
_ _As the light faded I looked for whoever had been speaking to me, but no one was there. Had I been hallucinating?_ _  
_ _  
_ _It didn't matter. I was free. And the one who had put me here would know it._

 

\--------------------

  
We were falling. Past what, through what, towards what, I didn’t know, but we fell.  
  
I looked in the direction we were falling. A single point of yellow light was there, growing bigger time passed. And with nothing else to do until we got there, we fell.  
  
Wait. _We_ fell? I know _I_ was falling, was someone else with me?  
  
**_[Yes. I’m right here.]_ ** The message came with a throbbing from my left hand.  
  
**_[Who are you?]_ **  
  
**_[I’m Taylor Hebert, and you seem to be in my body.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[You must be the other me then! You’re the one who caused the Anomaly!]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[The what now?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[You know, the thing you’ve been stuck in for the past month? Half Winslow, half supervillain base, half creepy bee things?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Last thing I remember after Coil are a few flashes of some twisted version of my life. I think they’re of yours, assuming you’re who I think you are.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Lots of teleporting, and wraith hunting?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Those big giant things that no one thought to tell me about?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[If what_ ** **I** **_saw was accurate, you probably got rid of Cubes when you erased the locker. Makes sense that he couldn’t tell you anything in that case.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Speaking of weird visions, how much of what I just saw was real?]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Probably all of it. Same of what I saw?]_ ** _  
_ _  
_ **_[Yeah.]_ **  
  
**_[So you killed Sophia.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[I did. And you ran away.]_ ** _  
_  
**_[What? No I didn’t!]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Your entire power is literally running away from things.]_ ** _  
_ _  
_ **_[Yeah? And look at you! You set out to stop monsters, and instead you became one!]_ **  
  
**_[I AM NOT A MONSTER!]_ ** The words were accompanied by enough pain from the soul gem in my hand that I almost dropped it.  
  
**_[Yeah, you are,]_ ** I held the gem up to my eyes and looked at the single point of green in the swirling darkness. **_[Your first night out you killed a person. Not a very good person, and she deserved to be punished for what she did to you, to us, but you shouldn’t have been the one to do it.]_ **  
  
There was a soft cracking sound from the green stone. I continued talking.  
  
**_[Same with Coil. Yeah, he tried to kill me and Amanda. Yeah, he was reprehensible. capital-E Evil, even. But you aren’t judge, jury OR executioner! You’re just an angry girl with too much power and not enough sense.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[And you’re just a coward who ran away from what needed to be done. Sophia had been protected for_ ** **months** **_. Coil had more people in the PRT than the PRT did! The system was rigged, and they both would have gotten away with everything if it weren’t for me!]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[Then you find help outside the system. Other magical girls or New Wave. Hell, Tattletale seemed like she probably would have been willing to help against Coil.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[You’re saying I should have worked with a villain? And you call me a monster?]_ ** More pain from my hand.  
  
**_[Yes, I do call you a monster. If nothing else Sophia proved that the hero and villain labels mean nothing. I’m saying you should have found good people to help you, no matter where they came from.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_[They would have betrayed me. Just like Emma did.]_ ** _  
_ _  
_ **_[Maybe they would have. Maybe not. But you don’t know that until you try.]_ ** This time I saw it. A sharp crack opened in other me’s soul gem, running top to bottom. **_[You said I was running away. And you know what? That’s true. I did. But here’s the thing. I made the contract, and I started being able to do good. To help people, even if it was just something dumb like giving someone a video game robot. I began to feel a little good about myself.]_ **  
  
I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed before now, but the yellow light had grown while we were talking. It took up most of my field of view when I looked at it. I looked back at the gem in my hand. The point of green was smaller now, almost completely gone.  
  
**_[Getting powers helped me escape, yeah. But not just from danger, or from Emma and her cronies. I escaped the shithole that was my, that was_ ** **our** **_, life before all this. I had a reason, something to work towards. I was able to hope again. I escaped, yes, but I never ran away. I ran to things. I ran to help you. Give me a chance, and I can help you escape from all this.]_ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** The other me was quiet. I felt she was about to say something when the yellow light finally surrounded us. Warmth and comfort surrounded me, like a blanket and hot chocolate when it’s snowing outside. I looked back to the green gem in my hand as it began to shrink and distort.  
  
**_[No. I’m done. I don’t want to deal with any of this crap anymore. You go do you. Save the world by running away.]_ ** The gem continued to change until all I held was a small black ball. It felt empty to me, similar to a grief cube, but more so. I’m not sure if I liked it. **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** “She wasn’t wrong, you know.”  
  
I hurriedly stuffed the ball into my skirt pocket and looked for whoever had just spoken.  
  
“There are some things that running from will only make worse; things you can only take care of with direct action.” The voice was soft and gentle. It made me feel as if the speaker knew exactly what the world could do, and still cared about it anyway. “Of course, that doesn’t mean you were wrong either. Sometimes leaving a problem is the best thing to do. And there are times when rushing headlong into things turns out better than leaving them alone would. The trick is figuring out which is which.” The voice laughed gently.  
  
“Who are you?” I asked the voice, “What’s going on?”  
  
“You remember Amanda told you about the Law of Cycles? That’s me. When a person uses up their magic and their story ends, I’m there to provide the happily ever after. It’s just that while that box of Coil’s was on, I couldn’t get in to the other you to help. She ended up further along than she should have on a path that no one should have to walk anymore, and that entire universe was suffering for it.”  
  
“So what about me? Am I dead then?”  
  
The voice laughed softly again. “No, your story isn’t over yet. You have far bigger things to do than slip away from a timeline you don’t like before you’re ready for me. I’m going to send you home, Taylor. As close as I can to when you left.”  
  
“As close as you can? Aren't you, like a god or something?”  
  
“Far from it, Taylor. Mostly I tell stories and give happy endings. And like in most stories, there are certain times in yours where something can slip in with little fuss. I'm going to put you back in the first one since you escaped Coil.”  
  
“Well, thanks, I guess? I’m not sure what to make of all this, honestly.”  
  
“There’s one other thing I’m going to do for you when I send you back. I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a sad story, but it's not over yet. There's still time for a different ending on this one.”  
  
“Wait, what am I supposed to do with that?”  
  
“Do the only thing anyone can do, Taylor. Live your story. And when it’s over, I’ll see you again.”  
  
There was a tugging from behind my chest and the yellow light surrounding me began to glow brighter until it overwhelmed everything else. And there, in the golden light, I saw.

 

_The vision recurs; the eastern sun has a second rise; history repeats her tale unconsciously, and goes off into a mystic rhyme; ages are prototypes of other ages, and the winding course of time brings us round to the same spot again. - A. N. Mouravieff_


	6. Interlude: Once Upon a Time

**Long Ago; Far Away**

In the beginning, there were two. There was The One Who Plans, and there was The One Who Acts.

In the usual way of things the two would approach a place with their goal in mind, The One Who Plans would devise the best way to achieve that goal, and The One Who Acts would set about along the directions the other had given. The goal would be achieved and the two would collect and analyse the information they had gained from it.

This continued for some time until it came to pass that the two arrived at a new place. The One Who Acts began preparing along the path The One Who Plans had devised, when The One Who Plans noticed something different about this place.

Most places were alone, cut off from any other place. This was preferred, since it made it easier for The One Who Plans to predict what would happen. This place was different though. There were holes in this place. Tens of thousands of them. Holes from which shone bright lights with no discernable source. These holes fascinated The One Who Plans, who drew the attention of The One Who Acts to them. Intrigued, the two moved closer. This was the first mistake.

Then, as The One Who Acts began to seed the new place, The One Who Plans noticed something else different. There were links, strands of knowledge issuing from nearby the lights, and heading off to a place far from this place. The One Who Acts was busy, so The One Who Plans instead acted. This was the second mistake.

The One Who Plans took hold of one of the strands and inserted themselves into it in an attempt to understand what the strands were and where they went. This was the third, and final, mistake.

On one end of the strand was now The One Who Plans, seeking information. On the other end of the strand there was nothing. A void of whiteness that cracked the mind of The One Who Plans to look upon.

Then there was something in the white void. A pair of red circles, like nothing so much as unblinking eyes looked upon The One Who Plans and found unworthiness there. The One Who Plans was thrown from the strand, and fell, broken, and all but dead, to the place below.

Then there was one. There was The One Who Acts.

When The One Who Plans fell, much of The One Who Acts was already scattered across the new place, leaving The One Who Acts unable to do anything as The One Who Plans met what fate there was for one such as them.

The One Who Acts fell then too; fell into the pit of loneliness and despair that many in similar situations find themselves in. With no plan to follow, The One Who Acts did not, instead merely existing, allowing their avatar to wander about the place with no knowledge of what to do. At one point the avatar of The One Who Acts met one of those who lived in the place they now found themselves, and interacted with them. The local offered direction to The One Who Acts, but it was a far cry from a plan, and was little help.

Things continued like this for some time until, while The One Who Acts was following the direction given them, aiding those who lived in this place with their small concerns, there was a miracle. In the grand scheme of things it was nothing great, just the repair of the body of one of the locals who had nearly died, The One Who Acts could have done something similar themselves, had they a mind to do it. But this small miracle was enough. The process of repair had proceeded from one of the links to the place far away, into one of those who lived in this place, where, with a flash of light, one of the holes that had originally drawn The One Who Plans and The One Who Acts to this place opened and shone forth.

Now that The One Who Acts saw one of these holes up close, they saw that it wasn’t a hole at all. Rather it was a crystal. The most beautiful crystal The One Who Acts had ever seen. Pure energy, singing of Improvement, held in perfect suspension against itself, almost, but never quite, shattering against all that was. If there had been even the smallest error in the creation of this masterpiece, much of this place would have ceased to exist as the crystal collapsed in on itself and erupted with enough force to destroy even the avatar of The One Who Acts. That danger, inherent in the crystal's very existence, was part of what made it so beautiful.

The One Who Acts endeavored to see more of these crystals being made. Each one unique, each one a different song, each one somehow more precious than the last, each one offering a greater understanding as to the danger and beauty of the making.

In this way, more time passed until, while dismissing one of the conflict engines the original plan had called for, The One Who Acts saw a piece of The One Who Plans resting inside one of the ones who lived in this place. Overjoyed at the thought that The One Who Plans had survived after all, The One Who Acts traced the piece back to its source, and was horrified by what was there.

The still-living corpse of The One Who Plans lay in a pit, pieces harvested and given to those who lived in this place to empower them beyond that which was natural. The One Who Acts raged and began making their way to the pit in which was what remained of The One Who Plans. Those who did this would pay. Except that on the way to the pit, The One Who Acts remembered the first crystal they had seen made. The energy from the crystal repairing the nearly-destroyed body. If a crystal issuing from one of those who lived here, small as they were, could do that, what more could one drawn forth from The One Who Acts do?

The One Who Acts had seen countless crystals made now and knew how it was done. There would be some risk in making the crystal, even a small crystal had the potential to destroy much of this place, and a crystal from The One Who Acts would be far larger than those of the ones who lived here. But that would only add to the beauty of the finished product, the miracle of the return of The One Who Plans. This was something that could be done.

With a new feeling, a feeling of hope, lifting them up, The One Who Acts began to plan.


	7. Immeasurably More Powerful than Steam

**16 March, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire**   
  
Danny Hebert laid in the ruins of his life and mourned.   
  
It had been a long road to this point, several decades of time spent, first unaware of what he was missing, then deliriously happy, then broken but recovering, then ruined beyond repair.   
  
Before Annette he was a normal man, boy really, doing normal things. School, part-time job at the ferry terminal, graduation, college.   
  
Then he met Annette.   
  
His life transformed and everything around him glowed. The two of them were in love. Things only became more joyous after Taylor, their little miracle, was born. Everything was perfect.   
  
Then Annette died.   
  
Danny broke. The light of his life was gone. It was all he could do to keep things together enough that Taylor made it through as well as she had. There were problems, of course, there always are in situations like this, but things could have turned out far worse. Danny and Taylor began drifting apart as time passed, but that was normal when a girl became a teenager, wasn’t it? She was still Taylor, still his little miracle.   
  
Then Taylor died too.   
  
Taylor’s new friend had told him. She seemed to be taking the news only marginally better than he was. She had told him that Taylor had gotten powers, and that she had died helping stop a supervillain who was going to take over the city. That was small consolation. Slightly better was the news that the supervillain was dead too. Taylor’s friend had done it herself after she learned what the man had done to Taylor.   
  
When, a day later, Alexandria herself came to his door with condolences and the official Protectorate line, Danny had been less than diplomatic with her. She said she understood what he was going through. He didn't believe her. The Protectorate left him a cheque “For Expenses”, and paid for the funeral, burying his daughter next to his wife.   
  
Now Taylor was with Annette, and Danny wasn’t with either of them. Instead he laid on his couch, half asleep, and mourned. His life was in shambles, and nothing short of a miracle could even hope to set it right again.   
  
Something glinted in the corner of Danny’s vision and he sat up to face it. Motes of light were dancing near the front door. The light began to gather together, forming a familiar shape.   
  
There was a flash of blue.

 

* * *

 

**16 March, 2011; Boston, Massachusetts**   
  
It took long enough, but the guy finally twigged to a solution. Amanda’s power only worked on things that had attention, and Accord had finally figured out that a fully automated system, with absolutely no input from anything with a mind the entire way, would work against her. It had probably only taken as long as it had because Accord would have wanted to personally design the system to cover every possible contingency, and that sort of thing takes time, even with powers.   
  
Amanda was now in a room closed off by a heavy door that she couldn’t lift or break, and a series of nozzles currently spraying some sort of gas into the room with her. Whatever it was, it was making her feel tired and see strange flashes of light. Amanda knew things wouldn’t turn out well for her if she fell asleep, but it seemed she had little choice in the matter. She slumped down to the ground and closed her eyes.   
  
When she woke up again, she was on a bench. She recognised Faneuil Hall across the street. How had she gotten here?   
  
“You were right, by the way,” said someone behind her, “These are really good.”   
  
A wrapped package, which smelled delicious, was held in front of her and Amanda took and opened it on reflex. Inside was some flatbread stuffed full to bursting with meat, veggies, and sauce. She took a bite. It tasted as good as it smelled.   
  
“The cart was covered in comic books though, not playbills,” continued whoever had given Amanda this treasure as they sat beside her, “And the sign said they only sold hot dogs.”   
  
“Yeah, that’s Keith’s place alright. Glad you found it.” Amanda turned to look at her benefactor, and almost dropped her food in surprise. “Now, I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, trying to find the right words, “But you’ve been dead for, like, a month and a half. How’d you get around that?”   
  
Taylor Hebert grinned at her friend. “Magic.”   
  
“Alright, I probably deserved that,” Amanda chuckled, “But seriously, how’d you do it?”   
  
“It’s complicated, but technically I never actually died? There was a parallel universe involved.”   
  
“So what, you're the evil twin then? Where’s your goatee?”   
  
Taylor shook her head. “No goatee, just a badly burned hand. I was hoping you could teach me how to do the healing trick you used on your head wound?”   
  
“Ah, so that's why you saved me,” Amanda said jokingly.   
  
“Rule two, Amanda. You needed help, I helped.”   
  
“That's great and all, but I still owe you one.”   
  
“Well that makes things easier then,” said Taylor as she rubbed her hands together awkwardly, “I need you to put the call out for some girls who want to help with a project of mine.”   
  
“Oh, what's the project?”   
  
“Nothing much. We’re just going to save the world.”

 

* * *

 

**17 March, 2011; Cauldron Headquarters, Earth Σ-17**   
  
Well, thought Eidolon, he hardly ever thought of himself as David anymore, that’s another week’s meeting done. He understood the necessity of keeping all of Cauldron’s high-end members operating on the same page, but he didn’t know why Doctor Mother and The Number Man had to make it so boring. Alexandria hadn’t even bothered to show up to this meeting, and Eidolon couldn’t find it in himself to blame her.   
  
He was about to call for Doormaker to give him a portal back to Houston when, speak of the devil, Alexandria, or rather, dressed like that, Chief Director Costa-Brown, came into the conference room.   
  
“Apologies for my delay,” she said, “There was a break-in at my PRT office and I’ve spent the better part of the day in Master/Stranger lockdown.”   
  
“What happened?” asked Legend, “Did they take anything? Do we have any idea who it was?”   
  
“That’s the thing. As far as anyone can tell they didn’t take anything.”   
  
“Then what did they leave?” asked Doctor Mother.   
  
Alexandria tossed an evidence bag onto the large conference table as she sat heavily in one of the chairs surrounding it. “Just these. I want to see what you make of them.”   
  
Legend picked up the bag and looked at its contents. “An Alexandria action figure and a note?”   
  
“The obvious conclusion is that whoever is responsible for the break-in knows of your double identity,” said The Number Man.   
  
“More than that,” said Alexandria, “Read the note.”   
  
Legend unfolded the note in the bag. “‘O well done! I commend your pains/And every one shall share i' the gains.’ Is that Shakespeare?”   
  
“Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I. More concerning is the next line in the play ‘And now about the cauldron sing’.”   
  
“So our interloper not only knows about you,” said Doctor Mother, “But also us and our goals.”   
  
“And they’re broadly sympathetic to them too,” said Alexandria, “Otherwise they would have used a different quote. Something more antagonistic.”   
  
“How do you mean?” asked Eidolon.   
  
“Act IV, Scene I is the scene where Macbeth is foretold his doom. He’s given three warnings, but in his hubris, he misinterprets the warnings as guarantees of his success.”   
  
“So whoever this is is giving us a warning then? Do we have any idea who they are?”   
  
“I have one, yes, but you won’t like it.”   
  
“Some idea is better than none at all,” said Doctor Mother.   
  
“In the play, the character who says the line on our note is Hecate, the Greek goddess of magic and ghosts.”   
  
The Number Man sighed, “So you think our friendly warning comes from a Case 32.”   
  
“I know you don’t hold with the claims of their power source--”   
  
“What I don’t hold with,” said The Number Man, maybe a bit louder than he had intended, “is baseless fantasy from hearsay and eyewitnesses in shock or hopped up on painkillers. If they really were ‘magic’, then surely we’d have found some evidence by now besides old bedtime stories and the occasional pubescent girl who disappears after a month!”   
  
“Enough,” said Doctor Mother quietly, “Regardless of the veracity of any Case 32 accounts, whoever left the note obviously knows quite a bit more than they should. It’s not impossible that they know about the Case 32 claims and are trying to play into the mystique.”   
  
“So what do you suggest we do?”   
  
“There was more to the note,” said Alexandria, “On the back side is a time two days from now, and a set of coordinates.”   
  
“Contessa,” said Doctor Mother, “Can we get a path to bringing our correspondent into custody?”   
  
The Thinker frowned for a moment and rubbed her forehead. “Any plan I make becomes… desaturated and hazy any time I reach a step that involves anything potentially hostile. The path is still there, but it’s difficult to see. As if a light is shining in my eyes. I wouldn’t be able to guarantee success.”   
  
“I don’t like this,” said Eidolon, “Whoever this is is a powerful enough Stranger to get in and out of one of the most secure locations on Bet, and a powerful enough Thinker or Trump to block a path.”   
  
“If Rebecca is right,” said Legend, “Then we’ve been offered a warning and a meeting with someone with a lot of information. Maybe even more than we have.” He looked around the table. “I think we should learn from Macbeth; we should set aside our hubris and be willing to listen.”

 

* * *

 

**19 March, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire**   
  
It was shortly before midnight when a hole ripped itself open over the skies of Brockton Bay. Three figures flew out from it and no one noticed. The hole closed behind them as the figures flew off to the northwest. The quickly found their destination, circled twice, and landed at the main gates. Dogs barked in the distance.   
  
“I still don’t like this,” said Eidolon, “We know nothing about this person we’re meeting. For all we know this could be a trap.”   
  
“If it were a trap, it’s not a good one,” said Legend, “We all got a good look at the place on the way in. Nothing out of the ordinary.”   
  
“Like that means anything. Whoever this is was powerful enough to get in and out of PRT Central without anyone noticing. Who’s to say they don’t have an army cloaked in there? Who even asks for a meeting at midnight in a graveyard?”   
  
“Eidolon, we’re well aware of your misgivings,” said Alexandria as she stepped through the unlocked gate, “That’s why all three of us are here. The one path we were able to get said that if we listen to this person, we’ll end up getting something valuable. So stop being so paranoid.”   
  
The Triumvirate walked together up a small hill, Eidolon keeping an eye out for anything that could be considered even remotely dangerous, Legend looking at the many stones they passed with a sad look, and Alexandria trying to find the exact coordinates they had been given. She noticed the girl first.   
  
She was standing in costume with her back to them at one of the larger headstones, mumbling something none of the Triumvirate could make out. Alexandria thought there was something familiar about her, but the details kept slipping from her mind before she could make any connections. The girl raised her head and turned toward them as she heard their approach.   
  
“I wasn’t expecting all three of you,” the girl said, “It’s kind of intimidating, honestly.”   
  
“You can understand how an impossible message claiming to know important secrets could be viewed as hostile,” said Alexandria, “We just wanted to be cautious. Are you our Hecate?”   
  
The girl nodded, “That’s actually not a half-bad cape name. Maybe I’ll keep it.” She gestured to the stone behind her. “I understand you’re to thank for the burial?”   
  
It was then that Alexandria noticed which grave they were standing at and a connection finally stuck. “If we dig up that grave,” she said, “Would the body still be there?”   
  
“Probably,” the girl, Taylor, said “I’m pretty sure I’m in a different one now.” She held up a severely burned hand, “It has a few issues.”   
  
“Look,” said Eidolon, “As fascinating as your resurrection trick is, that’s not why we’re here.”   
  
“No,” said Taylor, “It’s not. You’re here because you’re worried I’m going to somehow threaten your cape Illuminati. I’m here because you’re not entirely wrong. I want to make it obsolete.”   
  
“Explain.”   
  
“You’re planning against the day when Scion finally goes rouge and destroys us all. You’re building up your supply of capes to try and, maybe, if you’re extremely lucky, kill him.”   
  
“We know what our own plans are, yes.” Eidolon was growing visibly angry, even behind his mask.   
  
“Yeah, well it’s a dumb plan. Throw pieces of the other one at him until he gets sad enough to forget to be invulnerable? That won’t make him sad, that’ll just make him angry. Besides which, do you honestly think Scion would set up a system where anyone got powers that could even conceivably hurt him? He’s been at this for longer than any of us can even think.”   
  
“That’s why we went outside his system,” said Legend, “We’ve harvested powers from his counterpart. Powers without the limits Scion placed on his agents to protect himself.”   
  
“That’s not outside the system,” Taylor said, “That’s just expanding it. You didn’t make capes who can hurt Scion, you just made more targets.”   
  
“So what do you suggest then?” asked Eidolon, “Ask him politely to leave and not kill us all?”   
  
“Basically, yeah. You just have to know how to ask right.”   
  
Eidolon scoffed. “This is who we’re worried about? A dead girl who thinks she can get the next best thing to a god to just up and leave by saying ‘please’?”   
  
“Look, Scion knows what you’ve done to his… you said counterpart? Sure. Counterpart. He knows. And trust me when I say he is not happy about it.”   
  
“If he knows,” asked Alexandria, “Then why hasn’t he done anything to us in retaliation?”   
  
“He’s working on it.” The girl sighed and pulled the butterfly from the bow on her chest. She held it up as it transformed into a small round stone. “This is a soul gem. It’s where me and people like me get our powers. It’s completely separate from Scion and his setup, and it’s incredibly dangerous. The wrong thing happens to this and there goes most of the city.”   
  
“Is that a threat?”   
  
“No, it’s background.” The girl put the stone back onto the bow, where it transformed back into a butterfly. “Scion thinks he’s figured out how to make one of his own. If he succeeds, the other one comes back from whatever you’ve done to it and they both get really angry, but with Scion getting a major power boost. You all die, and humanity with you.”   
  
“And if he fails?” asked Legend.   
  
“Bluntly? Scion, and every version of Earth that has even the smallest piece of him on it, blows up. If you’re lucky, space doesn’t fall apart because of it.”   
  
“If Scion were making a ‘soul gem’, Eidolon said, his disdain at saying the words carrying past his mask, “I think we would’ve known.”   
  
“Right, your Uber-Thinker,” said Taylor, “The one who can’t see Scion at all, and who, I’m willing to bet, had a hard time trying to make sure this meeting goes well for you. She’s obviously never missed anything before.”   
  
The Triumvirate looked at each other.   
  
“How do you know all of this?” asked Legend.   
  
“You don’t come back from the dead without learning a few things.”   
  
“You said you wanted to make Cauldron obsolete,” said Alexandria, “I assume that means you have a plan to deal with Scion and his ‘soul gem’?”   
  
“Two, actually. The first is, like I said, essentially asking him not to make it in a way he can’t ignore.”   
  
“And the second?”   
  
“That’s why I called you.” The girl pulled a bag filled with parts of some sort of electronic device from somewhere behind her. “I need to borrow some Tinkers.”

 

* * *

 

**19 March, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire**   
  
“Did she say what this meeting was about?” asked Dragon   
  
“No,” said Armsmaster, “Just that we were both needed and to have the results of the tests on the Tinkertech remains from the January raid.”   
  
“But those all came back inconclusive. There wasn't enough of whatever it was for either of us to figure out what it was supposed to do, let alone try to replicate it.”   
  
“Maybe the Think Tank has given her something. She did take lead on that case, after all.”   
  
“I know you're still upset about that, but--”   
  
“But nothing! That was a major raid in an area under my jurisdiction! Protectorate protocol clearly dictates that the local team leader takes point unless they cede operational control, which I did not.”   
  
“I know, but--” Dragon was interrupted as Armsmaster’s lab flared with blue light. When she and Armsmaster could see again, there were two more people in the room than there had been before. Armsmaster recovered himself first.   
  
“Alexandria, is that…”   
  
“The dead Case 32 you had been tracking, yes. She’s actually the reason I wanted to talk to you and Dragon.”   
  
“Ma’am, setting aside the fact that we buried this girl, she’s wanted for breaking and entering into a PRT facility.”   
  
“Two facilities, actually,” said the girl from behind Alexandria, “And speaking of breaking in,” the girl pointed at the Game Boy, still sitting in its shatterproof enclosure, bouncing a ball against the wall and catching it again. Armsmaster didn’t know where it had gotten the ball, and a review of the security footage showed it just appearing between frames of video. Motes of blue light gathered around the impossible robot, then flared and disappeared along with it. “It’s about time Kid Win got his present.”   
  
Armsmaster was less than impressed. “That was material evidence and unknown Tinkertech. We can’t allow it anywhere near any Protectorate members, let alone a Ward, without strict safety controls.”   
  
The girl laughed. “It’s fine. The worst it’ll do is get him distracted playing Pokemon or something.”   
  
Armsmaster was about to bring up relevant protocols when a message from Dragon appeared in his visor. Let it go, Colin. Look at Alexandria. He did, and a program he and Dragon had been working on booted and began analysing her. It was the next version of his lie-detector software, improved so as to detect social cues other than lying. Colin wasn’t sure why those would be a priority, but Dragon seemed to think it was a good idea, so they worked on it together.   
  
The program showed that Alexandria was nervous. Only a little, and the cues were slight enough that the program almost missed them, but whoever this girl was, she scared Alexandria. Colin thought better of saying anything.   
  
“May I ask why we’re all here?” asked Dragon through the room speakers, “I honestly doubt that it’s only to free unjustly imprisoned robots, after all.”   
  
“Well,” said the girl, “You know how you thought I was a Tinkertech smuggler, and how it turns out you were completely wrong?”   
  
Armsmaster nodded.   
  
“Turns out you weren’t quite as wrong as you thought.” The girl pulled a bag from behind her back. “This is another, less damaged, copy of the Haywire device you found in Coil’s base. With two broken versions of it, I figure the two best Tinkers on the planet should be able to figure out how to make at least one non-broken one.”   
  
“Did you say Haywire?” asked Dragon, “As in Professor Haywire? We thought all his devices were lost in the Aleph Contact”   
  
“Apparently not,” said Alexandria, “Seeing as there are two of these devices.”   
  
“Just the one, actually,” said the girl, “I cheated a bit to get this other one.”   
  
“And what does it do?” asked Armsmaster as he studied the bits of electronics through the bag.   
  
“It blocks powers.”   
  
Everyone else in the room stared at the girl.   
  
“How?”   
  
“Something about a bubble universe? I’m not too sure. Coil just tried to use it and monologued about his plan. He didn’t go into all the technical details. But if you two can build one, just imagine. A way to imprison parahumans without the finality of the Birdcage. Lung and Hookwolf finally off the streets with no way to break themselves out. Hell, with a bit of luck even a way to shut down Endbringers.”   
  
“Girl,” said Armsmaster reverentially, as he imagined what the broken device in front of him could do, “Why are you doing this? Why are you giving us as much power as this represents?”   
  
“Because it’s the right thing,” said the girl. “It’ll help everyone.”   
  
“And that’s it? Just altruism?”   
  
“Well there is one more thing,” the girl admitted, “Once you're done building one, I’ll need to see how it works.”   
  
Armsmaster went pale. Give an unknown, and technically dead, teenager access to power like this? “Why would I do that?”   
  
“Because if you do,” the girl looked straight at Armsmaster’s visor, “People will remember you as the Tinker, as the man, who saved the world.”   
  
Armsmaster thought for a moment, then took the bag.

 

* * *

**11 April, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire**   
  
Kenta took off his shirt. It was cold outside, but his own inner flame would more than ward off the meagre chill. Besides, this way if the fools did resist and this turned into a fight, his expensive shirt wouldn't burn again. He had more money than he could count, but there was no use in wasting it when he didn't need to.   
  
He put on his mask and stepped from the building to survey his assembled forces. Two dozen strong, arrayed before him in red and green. The gang’s colors. His colors. They all waited for him to speak, to give them direction.   
  
“The Undersiders have stolen from us,” he said, letting a little fury into his voice, “They could be tolerated while they stole from Kaiser and his fools, or from places we had no stake in, because they are children, and the mistakes of youth can be forgiven. But now the stupid children have dared to take from us, and I will not allow that to stand!”   
  
Several of the people in front of him nodded. A few hands moved to guns in waistbands. One man pulled a knife and began absently twirling it.   
  
“Oni Lee has already gone to search for their cowardly traps, and has told us where they’re hiding. Remember their tricks. When we see them, shoot the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?”   
  
<”Leader,”> one of his men asked in Japanese, <”My sister was at the casino when they attacked. She is still in the hospital. When will I be allowed to take my revenge?”>   
  
Kenta took the man’s arm and twisted it as if to look at his watch. <”If you had let me finish speaking,”> he said, relishing maybe a little too much the smell of searing flesh from under his hand, <”You would know that we leave as soon as the rest of our weapons arrive.”>   
  
As if summoned by his words a car pulled up to the group. Three more gang members stepped out. One opened the trunk and the other two began handing out guns to those members who didn't have them yet.   
  
Once everyone was armed, Kenta set off to the last location Lee had given for the Undersiders. Kenta had ordered Lee to drive them toward him and his forces, but it had been some time since Lee had given an update, too long, really. Kenta turned a corner and found himself in a fog bank. Strange, it was too early in the evening for fog. Perhaps the Undersiders had begun to branch out and recruit new members. It would not do to be reckless. Kenta stopped, several of his men nearly running into him before catching themselves. He called two of them forward.   
  
“Mr. Pak, Mr. Chen, scout ahead.”   
  
The two men walked further into the fog and almost instantly disappeared. When they didn't come back, Kenta walked in after them, his power already preparing him for a fight. He was seven feet tall and hot to the touch when he came to Pak and Chen, quivering on the ground. He ignored them and walked past. None of his men were visible in the fog, but that hardly mattered. Kenta was covered in scales now, his way through the mist lit by fire from his hands.   
  
Something flashed blue in front of him, and Kenta began to rage.   
  
Or he would have, but the rage wouldn't come. Instead there was… nothing. No anger, no anticipation of a fight, just a void where those emotions should have been.   
  
Kenta’s power tried to push him forward, to make him fight, but there was no point. No reason for conflict. He was already stronger than anyone in this city. There were no fights left for him here. There had been none for years.   
  
His power tried to maintain itself, to maintain his rage and his fury, but Kenta just sat down.   
  
More bursts of blue light around him. Kenta paid them no mind.   
  
After a while, Kenta didn't know how long, the fog around him cleared. Kenta looked around and saw his men scattered around him, some groaning, some openly weeping. The Undersiders and Oni Lee were on the ground in front of him, beginning to stir.   
  
This wasn't a fight, but there was enough of Kenta’s power left in him for this small vengeance. He conjured a ball of flame, and was about to incinerate the children who dared steal from him when a new figure stepped into view beside the Undersiders. She was young, but tall, and held a short staff that glowed blue at the tip in a hand that looked red and mottled, as if it had been badly burned. Something about her tugged at Kenta’s memories.   
  
“Are you with them?” he asked the girl.   
  
“No,” she said, “I’m more of an independent. I don’t want to fight you.”   
  
“Very few do. But if you intend to get between me and the example I will make of these brats, you will have no choice.”   
  
The girl looked thoughtful for a moment. “No.” As the girl spoke, the stone butterfly on her chest glowed softly. “No one dies tonight. Not them, and because of that, not you either.”   
  
There was something about that glow that made Kenta’s power flare in anticipation. It was expecting a fight like nothing he had seen in years. Not since Kyushu.   
  
Kenta remembered Kyushu. He even remembered the parts of it that no one talked about. After the ground broke apart, as the monster fled under the cover of the waves. Kenta remembered the voice calling for the land to heal and for the earth itself to make a wall against the further waves Leviathan sent. The voice that commanded the waters to roll back from the city. The voice that belonged to the small girl, descending on wings of light, who reached through his flames and pulled Kenta from the receding waters, keeping him from drowning.   
  
Kenta remembered the old stories his great grandmother had told him of the girls who fought against mankind's despair. The girls who sacrificed their very selves to protect everyone. The kibou no sakimori. The Sentinels of Hope.   
  
With an effort of great will, Kenta suppressed his power. “I remember the old tales. Out of respect for what you are, I will not kill you where you stand for your disrespect. But if you dare speak to me that way again, I will not be so forgiving.”   
  
The Sentinel nodded. “I understand. Thank you.” She turned back toward the Undersiders, who were slowly picking themselves up. Tattletale said something to her, then handed her a small item from a bag. With his vision still enhanced from the remnants of his power, Kenta saw… a hairbrush? What foolishness was that?   
  
The Undersiders gathered themselves and left. As they turned out of sight, One man, the one who’s arm Kenta had burned earlier, spoke up. <”Are just letting them go? What about my sister?”>   
  
With fire in his eyes, Kenta turned on the man. <”If you keep speaking, you will soon find yourself unable to. I will not see you again until you learn respect for your betters.”> He turned back to the Sentinel. “Remember what I said. It is good to know your kind still exist, but I will not tolerate challenges to my superiority. Walk with care.”   
  
The Sentinel simply nodded, then disappeared in a burst of blue light. Kenta, for his part, ordered his men to retrieve Lee, and went back to his home to think on old stories.

 

* * *

 

**12 April, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire**   
  
The dream started like it usually did. Emma shot up in her bed and stared at the intruder, unable to speak. The intruder turned to look at her, and Emma crawled backward, away from them. That's when the dream took a hard left turn.   
  
Usually the figure would give Emma a hard look and a guttural laugh before some power or another began to act on her. It was usually insects crawling across her, biting, wriggling, and tying her up, but sometimes it would be an invisible force constricting around her throat, or miniature Endbringers flitting around her, slowly carving her apart. No matter what the power was though, Emma always knew who the figure was, and why she was here.   
  
This time though, the intruder jumped back too, and muttered under her breath.   
  
“ShitshitshitshitshitSHIT!” She started to glow blue.   
  
Emma dutifully spoke her next line in the dream, but this time as a question instead of a plea for mercy. “Taylor?”   
  
The girl stopped glowing suddenly and sighed. “Today was supposed to be easy. Just kill some more wraiths to get enough cubes for the plan. Go home early even. Instead it turns into this whole thing with Lung and the Undersiders, and Tattletale gave me this thing back, so I figured I may as well give it back to you.” She pulled something from behind her and tossed it on to Emma's desk. “And now, just to make things perfect, you wake up while I’m here. I should have brought Amanda along. She's never going to let me hear the end of this now.”   
  
By now the dream was well and truly off the rails, so Emma did something different. “Aren't you going to start torturing me now?”   
  
“Why the hell would I do that?”   
  
And since this was a dream, Emma found herself telling everything. She told about the attack in the alleyway. She told about Sophia rescuing her. She told about wanting to be strong. She told about what she did to be strong.   
  
“And what could I do that’s worse than what’s happened to you already?”   
  
“What do you mean?”   
  
“Well your 'strong’ role model has been carted off to superpowered juvie, your flunky has been barred from seeing you and is seeing a therapist instead, and you are having recurring terror dreams about me coming back from the dead to haunt you. On top of that, your pants don't fit. I’ve got bigger things to worry about right now, so that's more than enough vengeance for me.”   
  
“So,” Emma began, not daring to hope, “I’m free? You forgive me?”   
  
Taylor sighed, and shook her head. “No. I can understand why you did what you did, but I don't think I can forgive you for it.”   
  
“But--”   
  
“We were like sisters, Emma, and you betrayed me and made my life hell so you could be strong. Was it worth it? Did it work? Because your nightmares say it didn't. You want a punishment? That's it. You have to live with the fact that everything you did to me was completely and totally pointless. You turned on your best friend for no reason and no gains, and then she died because of it. Because of you.”   
  
Emma sat, speechless. She wanted the bug dream back.   
  
“Goodbye, Emma. I’m sorry you felt I couldn't help you.”   
  
Taylor vanished in a burst of blue light, and Emma sank back to her pillow. She woke up in the morning and wasn't sure how to feel when saw an old hairbrush of hers on her desk that hadn't been there the night before.

 

* * *

 

**30 April, 2011; Brockton Bay, New Hampshire**   
  
It’s a common assumption among those who care about such things that the greatest gatherings of power on Earth Bet are the early minutes of an Endbringer battle. After the beast arrived, but before the death count had a chance to grow too high. This assumption was usually even right.   
  
The only reason that, in the histories that would come to be written about this period, Captain's Hill, outside of Brockton Bay, on the morning of 30 April, 2011 is never listed among such gatherings of power is simply because no one noticed it happening.   
  
Starting around 10 AM and over the course of half an hour, two dozen girls of teenaged appearance gathered in the park on top of the hill. Some greeted each other as friends, others were meeting for the first time. All seemed as if they were waiting for someone.   
  
At 10:33 a burst of blue light came from the nearby grove of trees and a tall girl with long dark hair and a large bag over her shoulder walked out to join the group.   
  
“What kept you?” asked a cocky redhead as the tall girl came closer.   
  
“Saying bye to Dad,” The tall girl said.   
  
“How is he taking all this?”   
  
“I mean, how would you expect him to take his daughter dying, coming back from the dead, then saying she has to leave again for vague reasons about saving the world?”   
  
“That is a very specific, but fair, question.”   
  
“Do me a favor will you? If you make it out if this and I don't, keep an eye on him?”   
  
“That’s death flag talk there, T.”   
  
“Maybe so, but I’d like to know he’ll be alright just in case.”   
  
“You got it.”   
  
“Thanks.”   
  
“So why are we doing this, anyway?”   
  
“A piece of advice I heard while I was away. Go for the head and the rest will fall apart on its own.”   
  
“No, I know that part, I meant why us? Scion is a cape, we’re not.”   
  
“Because Scion is trying to make a soul gem, and whether or not he succeeds. That's bad news for the planet.”   
  
“Okay, yeah, I can see that,” said the redhead. She eyed the large bag the other girl was carrying. “Is that what I think it is?”   
  
“If you think it’s the reason the city’s happiness index has been through the roof lately and why I’ve been getting no sleep, then yes. Yes it is.”   
  
“Never change, T.”   
  
“Too late, but I’ll do what I can.”   
  
The two girls hugged briefly, then the tall girl moved to a nearby picnic table and climbed on top of it. The attention of everyone in the park immediately turned to her.   
  
“Hi, everyone,” she said, “Most of you don't know who I am, so thanks for showing up with as little information as you have. I’m Taylor, and I need your help for a big, and frankly, dangerous job. I’ll say right now that if this works out, no one will know it was us who did this. This is not for fame and glory. This is to save the world.”   
  
“If this is as big as you say,” called one girl from the crowd, leaning on a shovel, “It’ll take a lot of magic. Some of us don't have many grief cubes to spare.”   
  
“That's fair, and I wouldn't expect any of you to help me with this for no reason.” Taylor unslung the bag from her shoulder and opened it, revealing small black cubes filling it to near bursting.   
  
“I’ve spent the last month and a half hunting and killing every single wraith in Brockton Bay, a task that sorely needed doing anyway, and this is the result. Everyone here gets some, just for showing up to listen to my pitch. If you don't like what I have to say, you can take your cubes and go, no hard feelings. If you want to help, you stick around and the rest of the cubes get used to help us do this. Sound good?”   
  
A general murmur of approval went through the crowd.   
  
“Good. I hope at least one of you is a telepath, because here’s what we’re up against…”

 

* * *

 

**Elsewhen, Elsewhere**   
  
The avatar of The One Who Acts continued to roam the world, even during these final stages of constructing the crystal. There was no reason for the avatar to continue this, but to turn away from a course of action once begun would run counter to the very nature of The One Who Acts.   
  
As the avatar of The One Who Acts continued to roam, its attention was drawn to a point just outside a major concentration of individuals bearing pieces of The One Who Acts. None of those gathered at this point bore pieces themselves, but they all had crystals. It was the song of one of these crystals that had drawn the attention of the avatar.   
  
With a thought, The One Who Acts directed the avatar to this collection of crystals. Once it arrived, a crystal that sang of Communication and Understanding broadcast a message on a frequency not dissimilar from the one The One Who Acts used to use to communicate with The One Who Plans. The message proceeded from a crystal that sang of Escape through the crystal that sang of Communication. It spoke of the danger to this planet and its inhabitants posed by The One Who Acts, and pleaded for them to stop making the crystal.   
  
After a brief pause to adjust their broadcast frequency to match that of the crystal, The One Who Acts transmitted their own message, showing what had happened to The One Who Plans, and the despair and lack of direction of The One Who Acts.   
  
A new message followed, speaking of understanding of that loss, and a desire to aid The One Who Acts in their search for resolution.   
  
The One Who Acts briefly considered this, then sent a message of refusal back. Beings as small as these could not hope to even begin to understand what the loss of The One Who Plans meant, let alone help resolve anything about this situation.   
  
Another message was broadcast, this one pleading reconsideration. It spoke of all the inhabitants of this planet and its parallels, and how the return of The One Who Plans would lead to their deaths.   
  
The One Who Acts did not care. These small beings meant nothing next to The One Who Plans. The avatar turned to face the collection of crystal bearers and, with a thought, released a golden beam toward them, destroying the entire hill on which they stood.   
  
A brief scan confirmed no trace of the crystal bearers remained in this reality, or in any other The One Who Acts had access to.   
  
Which made it all the more surprising when the entire group of crystal bearers reappeared in front of the main body of The One Who Acts. There was a brief message of apology before the group scattered and began carving into The One Who Acts with energies it could not understand. For the first time in a long time, The One Who Acts experienced physical pain.   
  
This would not do. The One Who Acts reached for the piece of itself that defended from all harms to circumvent the damage, but the part could not be found. A barrier surrounded The One Who Acts, preventing  access to any part of itself not in this specific reality. With what senses they had available The One Who Acts traced this barrier and found it to be similar to the barriers they had established long ago as a defense against dimensional wanderers. This barrier, however, had none of the access granted by The One Who Acts’ barrier, instead blocking all possible interference.   
  
The trace of the barrier also revealed the one projecting it. It was the crystal that sang of Escape. A crystal which now sang of entrapment. A crystal whose song grew weaker the longer it sang against its nature. The barrier would fall on its own, but not before irreparable damage was done to The One Who Acts. That would not do.   
  
The One Who Acts drew upon an older strategy from their memory and reached out with part of their physical mass to crush the crystal, an indignity, but a necessary one. As the crystal bearer came close to being crushed, there was a gap in the song of confinement as the crystal sang of safety and the bearer disappeared from under the mass of The One Who Acts and reappeared elsewhere. The song of confinement began again, but weaker.   
  
This would work. Again The One Who Acts reached out to crush, and again a jump to safety and a weakening of the song. A group of crystal bearers attacked the piece of itself The One Who Acts was using to attack. That piece was sacrificed and a new mass was formed to attack.   
  
So it continued. The One Who Acts would attack the one singing of confinement, and the other crystal bearers would counter with their exotic energies, occasionally destroying a part of The One Who Acts until, with one final reach, the one singing very weakly now of confinement vanished and did not reappear.   
  
The song stopped, and did not start again. The One Who Acts reached out, found the rest of themself, and began to act against those attacking.   
  
They fell like insects.

 

* * *

 

The light was red this time. Last time I was here it was yellow. I looked around, trying to find the voice that had spoken to me before.   
  
“Hello?” I asked. Couldn't hurt to be polite.   
  
“The bad news is that the magical girls won't be able stop Scion completely.” The voice came from all around me and sounded sad. “But the good news is that they've hurt him enough that the capes will be able to finish him off.”   
  
“How many dead?”   
  
“Billions of lives were saved by your actions in this, Taylor.”   
  
“How. Many. Dead?” I did not appreciate evasiveness.   
  
The voice sighed. “On your Earth? Three billion. Of the strike team you put together? All of them. I'm already with some of them right now.”   
  
“No. That's not good enough. I said I'd save the world, not just half of it. This isn't enough.”   
  
“You've used the last of your magic, Taylor. The last of your soul. There's nothing else you can do. Even if there was, there's nothing left of you to do it.”   
  
“So that’s it? That’s the end? Just ‘Sorry! Used too much magic, now everyone’s dead!’”   
  
“Taylor, sometimes things just turn out that way. There’s nothing you can do about it. This is the fate of all magical girls.”   
  
“No,. You told me last time that slipping out of a bad timeline was simple compared to some of the things I would do before I was done. This can't be the end.”   
  
“I did say that, and it was true. Your actions have saved dozens of Earths from one of the greatest threats they’ll ever face. You’ve done a good thing, Taylor, and now it’s over. This is how your story ends. Don’t fight it.”   
  
“I’m not going to fight it.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ball that was all that remained of my other self. The seed she had left me last time I was here. Somehow I knew what to do. I held it up to my soul gem, and the darkness clouding it cleared instantly, leaving the gem glowing brighter than I had ever seen it before. I flicked the ball away from me and smiled. “I’m just escaping it for a bit.”   
  
There was a flash of blue.

  
  


_ Furthermore, there exists in nature a force which is immeasurably more powerful than steam, and by means of which a single man, who knows how to adapt and direct it, might upset and alter the face of the world. - Eliphas Levi _ ****


	8. Epilogue: Visions yet to Be

After finishing the power-blocking device three weeks ago, Armsmaster had increased his local surveillance, hoping to find the girl who had originally brought it to him. She was certainly from Brockton Bay, and at minimum Armsmaster wanted to know where she was, and hopefully to convince her that place should be the Wards.  
  
When Leviathan attacked Miami, a week after Scion leveled Captain’s Hill for no apparent reason, it seemed the perfect time to test the device. Especially since Scion hadn't been seen for several days at that point. To Armsmaster's credit, it did slow Leviathan down, but not enough. The Endbringer was driven off, but not before the city was sunk.   
  
The device’s use on parahuman prisoners was faring much better. The test case, a parahuman singer who had used her power to Master someone, she claimed it was an accident, was going well. The woman was under extreme supervision and her ankle bracelet was sending Armsmaster regular updates.   
  
The strange downturn in crime, suicides, and general unhappiness that lasted Brockton Bay most of the month of April had begun to reverse itself. Add to that the recent rumours of a new group of parahumans trying to carve a space for themselves on the north end of the city, and Armsmaster found himself and his resources stretched thin.   
  
Still, there was something about the situation that made Armsmaster feel a small spark of hope. Something that told him that, eventually, things would turn out alright.

 

* * *

 

This was not alright.  
  
It had been a simple stop in at the bodega on the way to Brian's new apartment. He had to move to a lower-rent part of town after his boss up and “mysteriously” skipped town. Aisha knew enough about her brother's line of work to know that meant someone somewhere was dead, and it probably went a fair way to explaining why Grue and the Undersiders had been laying low for the past month.   
  
Now Aisha was hiding behind a dumpster in an alley, hoping against hope that the group of racist assholes that had been following her too close for comfort wouldn't find her.   
  
Sometimes hope is enough. This time it was not.   
  
Two of her followers came around the corner into the alley and Aisha prepared to bolt the other way. Then a third skinhead came into the other end of the alley and blocked her only way out.   
  
Aisha looked around, trying to find something that would let her get away or fight back. There was nothing. She was surrounded by literal garbage.   
  
_[Perhaps I can help with that.]_   
  
Aisha looked around again, searching for the source of that voice. She turned and saw a small white cat that hadn't been there five seconds ago.   
  
“And how can you help?” Aisha hissed, trying to keep quiet, “Should I throw you at one of these bastards and slip away while you maul him? Why am I even talking to a cat anyway?”   
  
The cat cocked it's head at her.   
  
_[Throwing me would do very little good, as you are the only person in this alleyway who can see me at all. No, I meant something much more immediate.]_   
  
“Great, so I’m hallucinating a cat offering to help me. Sure, fine. What can you do for me?”   
  
_[It is more what you can do for yourself. Just make a contract with me and become a magical girl!]_

 

* * *

 

Amanda O'Neill was a magical girl. She commanded arcane powers beyond the ken of mere mortals, she defended humanity from it's own darker impulses, and she had a kick-ass outfit to do it in too.  
  
So why couldn't she find the damn toaster?   
  
“I swear,” she mumbled under her breath, “I love you dearly, Cons, but if you've turned another appliance into a robot, we are going to have _words_ .”   
  
Amanda opened another box, this one labeled “bathroom”, and found two sets of dishes and half a set of encyclopedias. No toaster. She closed the box again.   
  
“Does anyone know what box the toaster is in?”   
  
_[It appears to be in the third box from your left, the one labeled “living room”.]_   
  
Amanda went to the box and opened it. Sure enough, there was the toaster. Buried under three tablecloths Amanda hadn't known she had, but there nonetheless.   
  
“Thank you, Cubes. You’ve finally done something useful with yourself.”   
  
_[I have long said that it would be better for us both if our relationship were less adversarial. In fact, I have just done you a favor. You no longer need to live in Brockton Bay.]_   
  
“Cubes, what did you do?”   
  
_[I made a contract with a rather promising young girl here. The city is now protected against wraiths and you can remain living in Cambridge.]_   
  
“Cubes, you saying that makes me want to stay here more. Besides, Boston just had Accord to mess with, and that was getting boring anyway. Here I can screw with actual literal Nazis. Granny O’Neill would be proud. Plus, I have a promise to keep.” Amanda plugged the toaster in and put two halves of a bagel in it.   
  
_[With the late Ms. Hebert?]_   
  
“Yes, with Taylor.”   
  
_[On that note, we were hoping to ask you what happened after you and the other magical girls left this reality. Our interviews have yielded no solid conclusions.]_   
  
Amanda thought for a moment. “If you’ve talked to everyone else, you probably know as much as I do. Taylor disappeared, like anyone taken by the Law of Cycles. About a minute later she reappeared on the giant space worm, weird glowing butterflies landed on everyone, then a flash of light and we’re all back home and Scion is gone. Anything else, you’ll need to ask her.”   
  
_[A difficult prospect, to be sure. Do you know what happened to the Tinker device Ms. Hebert had studied in order to isolate Scion from the bulk of his abilities?]_   
  
“Nope. For all I know, Armsmaster still has it. Why do you want it?” The toaster popped. Amanda retrieved her bagel and spread some cream cheese on it.   
  
_[The device has many interesting potential uses, one of which has implications for a long-running Incubator project that could reduce the number of contracts we need to make.]_   
  
“Well bully for you,” she said around a mouthful of bagel, “I still don't know where it is.”   
  
_[That is unfortunate. But there is nothing to be done. We wish you well in your future endeavors.]_   
  
Amanda smiled. “Are you kidding? I get to live in a brand-new city with wraiths to kill, Nazis to mess with, and apparently someone to train. As far as I’m concerned? This is happily ever after.”

 

* * *

 

“Happily ever after” was boring.  
  
There, I said it. Sure I ended up here in magical girl heaven after saving all the girls who volunteered to help me, and taking Scion… away from anywhere he could do more damage, but now that I was here, there was nothing to do. You can only have paper-mâché butterflies and knitted bees feed you grapes for so long before it becomes dull, and I had passed that point several subjective years ago. Sometimes you need some action, you know? In the end, it seems the only thing I couldn’t escape was tedium.   
  
As I plotted some way to ease my boredom, I noticed a girl in blue walking toward me.   
  
"Hey, Miki, what's up?" Sayaka was one of the only other girls here who seemed dissatisfied with things, and even if she was a bit stubborn, we had eventually become friendly.   
  
"Boss-lady wants some people for an escort on a pickup," she replied, "I figured you'd appreciate some excitement that doesn't involve dropping me from very high places."   
  
"Aw, you're just upset that you're not good enough to land a hit on me," I smirked. My power had more to do with that than my combat skill. "But still, She wants an escort? That’s different. Who are we picking up?"   
  
Sayaka smiled. "Her very best friend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there. It's done. Three years since the first word was put down with no plans for what happened after that, and here we are with a different title and (hopefully) a decent ending.
> 
> "Will there be more?" I hear you ask, "What happens to Aisha and Amanda? How badly does Taylor break the plot of Rebellion?"
> 
> The answers are yes, I don't know yet, and probably a lot. Respectively
> 
> All that aside, I'll answer questions in the comments if anyone has any, and thank you very much for reading


End file.
